


A Choice Undone

by Charlievh



Series: Choices [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Tags Fail Me, Who needs a life with a fandom like this, ot fucking p
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:21:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlievh/pseuds/Charlievh
Summary: That trip to Nilfgaard would have to wait. (sequel toA Choice Made)





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Back in 2012, I believed _A Choice Made_ to be the end of Geralt and Roche’s story. The boys begged to differ. The end result is my longest fic yet AND my first multichapter fic. Working on it on and off, even just inside my head, has helped me through some tough times.
> 
> I never dared dream _A Choice Made_ would get such an amazing reception. A heartfelt thanks to all my readers, especially those who took the time to leave a comment. Without you, this sequel may never have seen the light of day. I only hope it’s worth the wait.
> 
> Like its predecessor, this story follows the events of _The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings_ and ignores the 3rd game (which is still awesome, mind). Needless to say, being a sequel, it will make more sense if you read the original first.
> 
> To my dear beta PestoMonkey: I meant what I said, I owe you BIG time. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.

“Yet life is no fairy tale. One story ends, another begins.”  
–story recap from _The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings_ _(Enhanced Edition)_

 

The sense of déjà vu bit into him as sharply as the freezing draught upon his bare skin. Seated on a creaky stool at a worn wooden table, dark walls bearing down on him while the stench of rats and despair made his nose curl, he might as well have been thrown back to the wake of Foltest’s death, cast down into the interrogation room beneath La Valette Castle… barring two elements.

One, this was not some Temerian dungeon but the cargo hold of a Redanian ship. And two, more importantly – back then he’d sat at the _good_ end of the table.

Vernon Roche rolled his neck and studied the two guards in crimson armor blocking the stairway to the deck. He had never cared much for the holier-than-thou attitude of the Order of the Flaming Rose, but ever since the Vizima uprising he regarded them as nothing more than traitors to the kingdom.

Judging by the cold stares the knights bestowed upon him, the dislike was mutual.

“What the fuck am I doing down here?” he asked without preamble. The show of belligerence was more pro forma than anything, since he was all too cognizant of the reason for his capture.

If the atmosphere had been chilly before, the temperature now dropped to below zero. One of the guards addressed him tersely. “An important visitor is on their way to speak with you, Temerian. Answer their questions and they will answer yours.”

Roche refrained from rolling his eyes at the cloak-and-dagger crap. “If all _they_ desire is to speak with me, then why am I handcuffed and stripped down to my ploughing trousers?”

The two knights exchanged a look before shooting Roche the evil eye. “You of all people ought to know, commander,” the other guard said. “You’re considered summat of an expert on the matter.”

Well. He supposed that marked the end of the conversation.

The strained silence of earlier oppressed the dank space, a silence Roche was content to ignore. Before long, however, footsteps could be heard above deck and descending down the stairs to reveal what he surmised, given the circumstances, to be his worst nightmare.

“Vernon Roche, in the flesh after all,” King Radovid V greeted with a solemn incline of his head. “My respects, commander. For a moment I feared the royal hound had shaken my hunters off its trail for good.”

“Your Grace.” Roche gave a curt nod, his cuffed hands dangling uselessly behind his back. His Temerian medallion hung heavy over his heart, likely left upon his person as some sort of shaming brand. If so, it failed its purpose.

Motioning for the guards to leave them alone, Radovid stood and waited until the clanking sound of their armor had faded before taking a seat opposite his captive. The firelight glittered in the precious stones of his rings as the king folded his pristine hands upon the table between them. His face looked ghost-like in the moonlight spilling in from above, further distorted by the shadows of a grate over their heads.

“Since both of us know exactly why we’re here, I’d just as well skip the pleasantries,” Radovid began. “I suspect you agree.”

“Quite. No need to pretend to be in the company of a fair lady when all parties are aware of the striga in the room.”

Radovid let the thinly veiled insult to his wife pass without batting an eyelid. “Where is she?”

Roche smiled nastily. “Surely you can do better than that.” As an afterthought, he added with mock courtesy, “Sire.”

“Meaning what, exactly? A reprise of Loc Muinne? Another chance for you to spit on my proffered hand? Evidently promises do not work on you.”

Roche schooled his expression into a blatantly uncooperative one, having learned early in life that the prettier the speech, the uglier the intent. “Then torture me and get it over with.”

“Do you think me a fool?” Radovid leaned across the table. “Do you think I would go through all this trouble if I believed for one instant that the threat of torture or death would faze the captain of the Blue Stripes?”

No, he did not. And he _had_ noticed none of Radovid’s men had broken his nose, bruised his ribs, or indulged in some other obligatory display of virility, while it would have been easy to give the order.

Roche knew better than to mistake such civility for weakness.

“In that case, I fail to see the purpose of this conversation.”

“Oh, but you will see, soon enough,” Radovid assured him. “The situation is absurdly simple, commander: a prepubescent girl does not outwit a horde of Redanian and Kaedweni troops on her bloody own. Clearly you have an accomplice… one you seem to trust with the blood of your late king.”

Roche looked him in the eye, _daring_ him to ask. Radovid didn’t so much as blink.

“At the summit, my Kaedweni confrere, with customary subtlety, was quick to inform me that ninety percent of your inner circle is now dangling from a short rope. He was equally quick to brag about the ‘personal treatment’ he bestowed upon the sole survivor.”

He should have expected it, but the stark reminder of his unit’s fate still hit its mark with disconcerting force. Behind his back, Roche’s shackled hands clenched into fists.

Radovid either failed to notice, or was content to let him squirm. “Rumors abound as to the exact nature of the, ah, duties this wench performs for you, but I know better than to underestimate any soldier under your command. And according to my beloved wife, otherwise known as your king’s firstborn, this Ves is reputed to be your right-hand man – or woman, as the case may be.”

Roche couldn’t hold back a cynical smile at the mention of Adda. Foltest’s blood might course through her veins, but he was not naïve. While of Temerian birth, she now bought her baubles with Novigrad crowns and spread her legs for a Redanian king. Her ties to her father’s reign and country grew weaker every day she sat on her husband’s throne.

“But then,” Radovid went on, “there is another possible confederate, is there not?”

Something in his tone set Roche’s nerves on edge. He forced himself to ease up and meet his captor’s calculating stare.

“‘Tis my understanding that the two of you went separate ways following our frankly disappointing audience in Loc Muinne. While you ran off to single-handedly butcher half the Kaedweni delegation, Foltest’s other pet showed up at the peace talks in the company of that witch Merigold, stirring quite the mayhem of his own. But that does not necessarily mean–”

“The witcher has nothing to do with this,” Roche cut him off, more bluntly than intended.

“Indeed?” Radovid arched a trimmed eyebrow. “You will forgive me if I do not take your word for it.”

Roche shot him a vile look. “You hardly need my word to know he could not care less about politics.”

“Surely you will admit that for a man who despises the noose of political intrigue, Geralt of Rivia has a way of ending up with his neck ensnared.” Radovid paused for effect. “Especially where someone dear to him is involved.”

Roche said nothing, but he couldn’t help the way his pulse sped up uneasily. It was not that Geralt was in any way involved in his current predicament; he wasn’t. And Roche was determined to keep it that way, perhaps a little too much so.

“I was there when he called you a friend,” Radovid pointed out. “And while I do not purport to know the White Wolf, I _do_ know he does not employ the term lightly. What’s more, the feeling appears to be mutual.”

Roche neither confirmed nor denied it. Behind his calm façade, however, raged a restless agitation, and he hated it. He never liked it when his emotions got the better of him.

Except the one time he did.

“And by some curious coincidence, nobody has seen or heard from the witcher since the dragon debacle in the amphitheatre, which is around the time you disappeared with the royal child. A scant fortnight ago, the very world order seemed at an end, and thenceforth – nothing. Verily, whatever game the two of you are playing, sooner or later it’s bound to come back and bite you.”

_Oh, you have no idea._

Roche supposed the mental images of his and Geralt’s ‘game’ ought to fill him if not with disgust, then at least with deep shame and crippling self-doubt. Yet being a soldier, he’d never been one for introspection for the mere sake of it, considering himself a man of action first and last.

And in all honesty, as far as actions went, he wouldn’t mind if it happened again. Even if he knew in his heart of hearts that it wouldn’t.

Roche lifted his chin with simulated poise. “If I were to gamble the fate of my kingdom on a shadow agent, I like to think my preference inclined toward someone less conspicuous than the White Wolf.”

“A fair point,” Radovid conceded in a gallingly civil tone. “But one could accuse you of skirting the issue.”

“I don’t know where the witcher is at present,” Roche scowled, truthfully. “If he is your main concern, you’d be better off asking Triss Merigold or that poet, Dandelion.”

“He is not, hence my asking you.” Radovid paused, a cold glint in his eyes. “I’ve said promises do not work on you. Perhaps threats will.”

“Threaten away.”

The smile Radovid shot him was little more than a baring of teeth. “You have a reputation for biting without bark, commander. One might argue the opposite to be beneath you.”

“It’s an open secret I rose to this position precisely because nothing is beneath me.”

“‘Nothing’ oft boils down to a lack of imagination. I’m sure between the two of us, we can come up with something. No doubt you value your own life as much as a whore does her virginity, but your friends may be a different matter.”

Back to more familiar territory, at last. Had it not been for the handcuffs, Roche would have crossed his arms over his chest. “Even should they be, my friends – unlike me – are not rotting away in the bowels of a Redanian ship,” he pointed out.

“Not yet,” Radovid amended. “But surely I need not impress on you the efficiency of the Redanian Secret Service, commander. Sooner or later, either the witcher or your harlot will end up in my web. And if _they_ don’t lead me to the child directly, you will – or it will be their deaths on your patriotic conscience.” Radovid’s keen eyes studied the face of his prisoner. “Although morbid curiosity, I admit, compels me to wonder which of the two would be more likely to sway you. I could not help but notice your good little soldier was conspicuously absent from Loc Muinne… one of them, at least.”

For a split second, Roche’s heart stopped in his chest, but he forced himself not to take the bait and keep his wits about him. These were far from idle provocations, and he deemed it prudent not to give away his weak spots more than he already had.

Determined to put an end to a charade that he’d known at the outset could only end one way, he spoke up with feigned calm. “If you learned of the child’s location, would you promise to leave both the witcher and Ves in peace?”

“I daresay there would be little point in doing otherwise.” Radovid inclined his head. “You have my word.”

Roche cast his eyes down for a long moment and clenched his jaw. “So be it.”

* * *

With the interrogation concluded, Radovid disappeared above deck and shouted orders to set course for the region of Upper Aedirn or Lormark, as Henselt had ordained it henceforth be called. The helm was put over with typical Redanian efficiency, and before long the royal galley was sailing swiftly down the Pontar, oarsmen rowing furiously as if pursued by the King of the Wild Hunt himself. A similitude which wasn’t too far off, Roche thought privately.

Once moored in Vergen, the king and his crew spent several days in anxious waiting while Redanian search parties combed the war-torn dwarven town for Anaïs La Valette. Fortunately, the Kaedweni army offered little in the way of resistance, still drunk and spent after nigh on a fortnight of filling mass graves and savoring their war spoils.

On the first day, Roche was offered a crystal glass of what he recognized as an exquisite Toussaint Red, which he politely declined. While he seldom had the luxury to indulge in anything that dulled his senses, he was not about to start now, aboard an – all things considered – hostile ship. Especially when the rich scent of the wine was enough to conjure up images of happier times.

“Bad vintage?” Radovid asked sardonically, unfazed as he poured himself a glass. “Beware, commander, lest you corroborate those dark rumors insisting the royal hound lives off a diet of elven blood.”

Roche barked a short laugh. “If that were the case, I regret to say I’d have died of starvation by now.”

“Perhaps,” The monarch took a contemplative sip before venturing, “unless this insatiable bloodlust has compelled you into an alliance with the one individual capable of catering to your… peculiar tastes.”

Roche sensed the direction their conversation was taking, but refused to play along.

In the cabin’s torchlight, Radovid’s eyes seemed as red as the wine he was drinking. “To grant Foltest’s alleged murderer his freedom in exchange for an incessant flow of blood straight off his silver sword. Professional killer and bloodthirsty vampire – a beautiful symbiosis.”

“Quite,” Roche agreed readily. “Although I’m partial to the one between a king and gossipping old crones, myself.”

The polite smiles they flashed each other dripped with mutual distaste.

* * *

On the second day, Roche stood on deck and watched as the king thrummed impatient fingers on the railing whilst staring out over the southern riverbank. Any and all Redanians stuck aboard the ship gave a wide berth to their ruler, loyal dogs sensing their master’s ill mood and anxious to avoid the cracking of the whip.

Roche knew a lost cause when he saw one.

Staring at the monarch’s rigid back, he chanced, “Does Your Majesty wish for me to join one of the search parties?”

“No,” Radovid said simply, without sparing him a glance. Roche believed that to be the end of their conversation, but after a tense silence, the king continued, “You will stay on board, and do not think of wandering out of my sight.”

That evening, Roche was idly humming a tune to himself that Geralt had taught him during their three-day hike to Loc Muinne – an old dryad song, supposedly – when two armed knights marched up to him without a word. Not so dumb as to try and put up a fight, he allowed them to take him below deck and chain him up in the cargo hold.

The ship’s gentle rocking took him right back to the Percival, and Roche felt his eyes begin to droop. With nothing else to do, his mind began to wander, straying back to his and Ves’s mountain shelter some little way off Loc Muinne. As he’d sat alone by their small campfire to take the next watch, watching Anaïs snuggle closer to Ves in their sleep, the heat of the flames had turned to echoes of a certain witcher’s touch on his skin. Echoes that with every passing minute seemed closer to a dream.

Roche leaned his head back against the wooden boards and shut his eyes in a half-hearted attempt to capture the memory. He’d neither seen nor heard from Geralt since their secret rendezvous at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Had never even given a straight answer to Geralt’s offer to accompany him to Nilfgaard. While the prospect of going behind enemy lines and raising some hell had been tempting as fuck, he could not forsake his duty to Temeria. When he’d told Geralt as much, the witcher had shrugged and mumbled something about the offer still standing after he himself returned from R&R.

Somehow, as he adjusted the iron shackles cutting into his limbs, Roche was beginning to doubt it.

* * *

On the third day, Radovid visited him below deck. The dark circles under the monarch’s eyes may or may not have been a mere trick of the light. Either way, there was something almost wraith-like about him.

“My search parties are to remain here,” he informed Roche coolly. “In the meantime, we continue on to Tretogor, where you’ll find the prisoner accommodations slightly less primitive.”

The king had already turned his back on him and had almost reached the stairs before adding, “For your sake, however, you better pray my men find the girl quickly. With every passing day, my patience shall grow thinner… as shall your rations.”

A week’s voyage passed without further notice. By the time they disembarked in Rinbe, less than a day’s travel from Tretogor, Roche began to wish he had accepted that Toussaint Red when he had the chance.

* * *

Hours that could have been days that could have been weeks whiled away slowly in the dark solitude of his cell. Caged like a beast, Roche spent most of his time huddled on the cold, bare floor in a state of half-sleep. His world had narrowed down to dank stone and steel grate, a dull monotony broken only by the now familiar sensation of hard steel cutting into his raw wrists, or the odd visit by a taciturn guard. Not exactly his favored way of spending his time, but it takes a lot of venom to poison a snake.

Roche’s ears picked up a noise in the distance. Urgent strides heading toward him, followed by the rattle of his cell door being unlocked and a warm, blinding light. His chilled body instinctively turned toward the heat like a withering flower to the sun.

“Scrape that rat off the floor,” spat a hateful voice.

A rough pair of hands hauled him up and brought him face-to-face with the fire-lit frame of King Radovid. The torch in the monarch’s hand cast an eerie shine over his stern, unreadable countenance.

“I’ve just received curious word from the head of my secret service,” Radovid announced in a hollow tone. “Anaïs, bastard child of King Foltest and Baroness Mary Louisa La Valette, heiress to the Temerian throne, has resurfaced at last.”

The grave announcement drove a chill into Roche’s heart as if some invisible mage has cast a frost spell upon it.

_By the grace of the silver lilies, please…_

The king took a step forward, dispelling the darkness all around. His regal, commanding bearing was eclipsed by the near-manic glint in his eyes. “I’d tell you where… if I wasn’t positive you know already.”

Further invading his personal space, Radovid lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “The La Valettes,” he hissed in Roche’s face despite his earlier intention.

Roche closed his eyes and let out the breath he’d been holding.

_Good work, Ves._

As the initial surge of relief subsided, a strange calm settled over him.

_Now watch over her, as I failed to watch over her father._

Even with his eyes shut, Radovid was a tangible presence that loomed over him like Death at a sick man’s bedside. “Your actions have called a monarch’s wrath upon one of Temeria’s oldest and most revered aristocratic families.” Said monarch’s tone simmered with carefully restrained anger. “Has recent history not taught you nothing good comes off such a confrontation?”

Briefly, Roche was thrown back to the siege of La Valette Castle. The trebuchets hurling their massive stones through a perfect azure sky, obliterating the fortified walls with deafening crashes; the sweet fragrance of spring drowned out by the coppery scent of blood as he and his lads made short work of the baroness’s opposing forces.

The day had started out so promising.

Then came the dragon, and things had only gone downhill from there. To the point where Roche now divided his mental timeline into before versus after the siege. La Valette Castle marked the beginning of the long road to Temeria’s downfall… but maybe, just maybe, the castle would also mark its end.

“Above all, recent history has taught me the Northern Kingdoms can leave naught to chance when it comes to Nilfgaard.” Roche reopened his eyes. “I’m no general, but squandering troops in an internal conflict with an allied state strikes me as a singularly poor strategy to face the Imperial army.”

Radovid stared at him, visibly taken aback, but to his credit, he recovered quickly. “I see you are well informed, even now,” the king said slowly. “For a man who’s been on the run ever since the peace summit, you scarce seem to have missed a beat with regard to the North’s state of affairs, or the Empire’s involvement therein.”

Inwardly, Roche thanked whatever powers that be that Geralt had seized the chance to attend the summit and brief him on the essentials afterwards. He’d never have been able to call Radovid on his bluff otherwise.

“If our rulers and mages spend as much time worrying about foreign threats as they do about internal ones, we may yet win this war.” Roche allowed a cynical smile. “But until then, Anaïs of Temeria will be safe at La Valette Castle; raised by the baroness and growing older and more difficult to bend to a ruler’s will with every passing year.”

The harsh lines in Radovid’s face deepened as he stood stiffly before his prisoner. “A soldier both willing and able to play the deadly game of politics,” he stated icily. “As if all those sorcerers and sorceresses overstepping their bounds weren’t bad enough.”

“I’ve learned it from the best,” Roche admitted. “Learned it, in fact, from the only two men I know whose mastery of politics is rivalled solely by their hatred of it: Geralt of Rivia and King Foltest himself.”

“Perhaps I ought to ensure, then, that the former meets a fate similar to the latter.”

“By all means, Sire, break your word and issue the order to hunt him down. In time, I don’t doubt your agents will succeed. Yet time, courtesy of the Black Ones, is the one thing you do not possess.” Roche marked a deliberate pause. “That is, aside from Foltest’s legacy.”

A muscle started twitching in Radovid’s jaw, dangerous but oh-so-gratifying, and Roche had the irresistible urge to add insult to injury. “So yes, I barked… and now my bitch has done the biting.”

Without warning, Radovid slapped him across the face – truly _slapped_ him, as if he were a costly whore that had failed to please him. Roche’s head lashed to the side, tears springing to his eyes. The muscles in his cheek protested dully when he turned back to his captor with a vindictive grin.

Grabbing a fistful of his hair, the king yanked his head back and forced him to look up into the foul gleam in his not-so-regal eyes.

“You shall _not_ die a hero,” Radovid spat, his breath hot and repugnant against Roche’s cheek. “There will be no shaming procession through the city streets, no public execution, nothing to so much as _hint_ you ever lived. You are to rot in this dungeon until your name has faded from even your mother’s lips. And when the North and the Empire clash on the banks of the Yaruga and your precious Temeria dies in the crossfire, I will make sure every death, every rape, every disease is blamed on you. You will go down in the annals as Vernon Roche, bane of Temeria.”

Shaking with fury, Radovid let go of his hair and barked the order to take him away. The guard shoved Roche unceremoniously toward the door. Bereft of his only support, he stumbled forward, his trusty manacles cutting ever more deeply into his wrists.

As the heavy door swung open, Radovid slithered closer until Roche shrank away from the torch’s scorching heat. Something in the king’s expression made his hackles rise up like an old hunting dog picking up a well-remembered scent.

“Torture may not be able to make you talk,” came Radovid’s soft parting words. “But it _will_ make you scream.”

* * *

It did.

The moment he was fixated with a prisoner hood pulled over his head, Roche knew he was about to get a taste of his own poison. Trapped in suffocating and never-ending uncertainty, his imagination was soon left to its own cruel mercy – a mercy that had once, not so very long ago, left a certain witcher begging for more.

No amount of begging would save him here.

Every muffled noise that broke the silence – be it the clatter of metal, footsteps drawing nearer, or his own shallow breaths in his ears – could’ve been his personal harbinger of death. Every pricking sensation into his skin, every boiling drop, every bloody tear trickling down his weeping body could be the last thing he ever knew, and he’d never see it coming.

Deluding the mind like that was a stroke of genius, and if that didn’t drive the message home that his flesh had become the quivering, heaving canvas to a master’s brush, the sheer endlessness of the nightmare did. Night and day, sleep and wakefulness, sanity and madness all coalesced into that one unseen chamber.

If fate was at all kind to him, he would not last as long as some of his own victims.

There was a bond in fear, in pain, in gradually having one’s soul and skin peeled back layer by layer. But even blindfolded, his expert eye couldn’t help but note subtle changes in pacing, ever-shifting tools of preference and the idiosyncratic ways of wielding them – little signatures betraying different artists – and he knew he was tossed around like a wench, satisfying the whims of one man after another.

The horror waxed and waned until it was written into the very core of his body, resonated in every last tendon, vein and nerve until there was no awareness left beyond wet, pulsing pain and the taste of his own blood.

At some point, even his screams ran dry.

* * *

Radovid paid him a visit exactly once. That he was conscious enough to notice, anyway.

“I would order your eyes gouged out,” the king’s voice told him without prelude, “but when I get my hands on your harlot, you shall be in the front row to witness ordeal after ordeal that I will subject her to. And I promise you this: by the time my men are through with her, she will be _begging_ for Henselt.”

The prisoner hood muffled Radovid’s words to a dull, deadened thing. The thick fabric, however, did little in the way of explaining the brittle sounds issuing from Roche’s own throat. “If I had a whore for each time some low-life threatened to make Ves bleed, either by sword or by fucking her raw or a combination of both, I could start my own brothel,” he rasped.

“You shan’t start a thing, commander.” Radovid’s voice was like salt seeping into his wounds. “Not now, not ever again.”

* * *

With hunger and nausea waging a literal death battle inside his chest, stirred up by the war drums of his heart, Roche began to wonder if his physical throes were anything more than the vagaries of a dying mind, and what difference it made in the end.

Where did darkness end and death begin?

In his fevered dreams, there were footsteps drawing ever nearer; unintelligible murmurs; the turn of lock and key and the creaking of a door. Then a clear, melodious voice shot like an incendiary arrow over the no-man’s-land of his mind.

_Farewell, my friend. May the eternal fire light your path._

Shit. His time had come, then.

_Godspeed, Siegfried. And thanks._

Another, gruffer voice replaced the first. Its gravelly tones rumbled over him and soothed his jaded heart like a distant memory of the war hymns his boys had been fond of singing.

_Roche._

Jerked back from the poisonous waters it had been drowning in, his mind was anchored back to the shores of reality, reeling and coughing and shivering. A hint of footfalls, as swift and light on their feet as a wolf on the prowl. Roche’s heart tugged in what he was unsure was terror or relief.

_Vernon, it’s me._

The same voice from before, closer now, tingling his nerves like drifting embers from a dying fire. There was something about that tone… coaxing and beckoning and triggering faded, half-forgotten memories in mind and body alike.

Roche tried to speak, to make a sound, _any_ sound, but his vocal cords refused to cooperate. Or perhaps he was no longer there to be heard.

A whisper of movement, a gentle tugging around his neck, and the hood slipped off his face like Death’s welcoming caress.

As his pupils struggled to focus, a pair of glowing, cat-like eyes, as golden and familiar as the lilies on Foltest’s regalia, stared straight into his soul.

* * *


	2. II

There had to be an escape from this cruelest of torments. He had encountered some of the ugliest, vilest, absolute worst this world had to offer, men and beast alike, but nothing could compare to this horror. It is said every man has a breaking point, and he could feel himself teetering dangerously close to his personal edge, staring down into the bleak abyss below.

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?”

_Oh for the love of–_

Shrill giggling ensued over the tavern’s congenial evening din. He screwed his eyes shut more tightly in quiet agony.

“Oh dear me, no. Awfully trite,” the voice continued with merciless cheer. “Yet oddly familiar. I must have heard that line somewhere… or ‘tis that the words are written in the sapphire depths of your eyes.”

_All right, enough._

“Or in some old tome on epilepsy,” he muttered under his breath, albeit loud enough to be heard.

A pompous huff from the other end of the table. “My dearest witcher, for all your mutations, you’ve yet to grow a lyrical bone in your body.”

A nasty smile crept over said witcher’s face. “And on the fiftheth day, the gods createth witchers to riddeth them of an evil most foul: raving bards spewing inane poetry… eth.” Shaking himself from his stanza-induced daze, Geralt opened his eyes and looked over at the pending calamity he called his best friend.

Dandelion, unimpressed, was lounging in his chair with his feet propped up on the table, plucking away at the strings of his lute with feigned insouciance. Two buxom young ladies, who had been flanking him for most of the night and whose names Geralt had yet to catch, listened to his every chord and word with enamored awe.

“As a certain tutor of mine used to say, his wit paralleled by naught but his flamboyance: ‘It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.’” The poet slid into lecturing mode with gleeful, practiced ease, apparently taking up the gauntlet. “Ergo, to shun art is to shun oneself.”

Just as effortlessly slipping into the role of student, Geralt rested his chin on his hand, already zoning out. “To embrace art is to shun reality,” he retorted gruffly.

“Oh, reality! Reality is dull and overrated.” Dandelion waved a dismissive hand, clearly on a roll. The witcher ducked for cover. “Science may cradle our world with all the comfort and security of a spouse, but art will forever be the beguiling mistress luring us to the perilous cliffs of our desire.” The dreamy look on the poet’s face, just the right balance of pensive and impassioned, could have been bottled and sold as an aphrodisiac. The girls swooned.

With impeccable timing, Dandelion touched a dainty hand and opened his mouth to speak or sing a romantic ballad or whatever, but Geralt beat him to it. Speaking, that is. “I’ve no idea what the hell you just said, but–”

Before he could finish, the door to the inn swung open and a lone man entered, clad in conspicuously inconspicuous garb. After a brief chat between the cloaked visitor and the innkeep, the latter pointed a finger in the direction of their table.

Watching the covert exchange out of the corner of his eye, Geralt sat up straighter. Both of his swords lay in his room upstairs, but if need be, he always had his Signs to rely upon.

While Dandelion prattled on, the stranger turned and approached their table, dark cloak twirling behind him. “Master Dandelion?” he inquired politely, his dignified bearing strangely out of place amidst the art students and philosophy teachers slurring their respective wisdoms over the frothing rims of their goblets.

At the mention of his name, Dandelion – hitherto oblivious to all but his doe-eyed audience – was gracious enough to put his own monologue on hold. Putting down his lute, the bard straightened his hat and turned to greet their guest. “My good man, you gaze upon mastery incarnate. Whatever is the matter?”

At once, the stranger reached inside the folds of his cloak. Geralt was a split-second away from drawing Aard and disarming him, but then the man merely pulled out an envelope and handed it to Dandelion.

Four pairs of eyes stared at the envelope in the poet’s hands, perfectly commonplace but for a kiss in lipstick adorning the front. Dandelion turned it over, only to find the wax seal oddly blank.

Geralt narrowed his eyes in vague suspicion. There was something… _off_ about that envelope and he could not suppress the cold shiver creeping down his spine any more than he could explain it.

Meanwhile, Dandelion’s audience looked just about ready to shove his lute down his throat, even as their suitor was practically bouncing up and down in his seat with excitement. “Oh, such titillating mystery!”

“ _Mystery_?!” one of the girls shrieked. “You mean to say you’ve nary a clue who sent it?” She and her companion both crossed their arms over their chests, the look on their faces reminding Geralt of a pair of vicious bruxae. He half expected the medallion around his neck to start humming.

“How could I?” Eyes still riveted upon the envelope, Dandelion made a gesture of impatience. “Forsooth, I can think of at least a dozen–”

Geralt and the courier flinched at the sick sound of skin slapping against skin, and tried their utmost to blend into the background while the two women took their leave.

“Ouch!” Dandelion whined, glaring after them while gingerly rubbing his sore cheek. “Thanks for nothing, Geralt.”

“What did _I_ do?”

“Nothing, as I just attempted and clearly failed to convey. You could have stopped them!”

“I doubt it,” Geralt muttered. “Also, I’m a witcher, not your personal matchmaker. You told me just to act like myself while you – and I quote – paid ‘reverence to the goddess of wooing,’ so I did.”

“Yes, about that, for future reference: you need not act like yourself quite so much. The higher arts look all the lovelier in contrast with vulgar banality, point conceded, but too many thorns will smother even the prettiest flower.”

Geralt curled his upper lip. “What did you call me?”

“Will this take long? If so, I may as well order a pint while I wait,” the courier butted in, gazing longingly at the drinking binge taking place all around them.

“No, it won’t,” Geralt said pointedly while he continued to glare at Dandelion, who shrugged. Then the witcher backtracked. “Wait for what?”

“Why, a reply, of course.”

Dandelion gave a cry of delight. “Oh Geralt, hark how anxious she is for my reply!”

“If it’s another paternity claim, I don’t wanna hear about it.” Geralt was not even joking.

Dandelion, clueless as ever, regarded him with that look of sympathy bordering on pity that he so hated. “My dear witcher, wherever is your childlike wonder and curiosity?”

“Dandelion, your curiosity is many things, but childlike is not one of them,” said witcher retorted before turning back to the courier. “Will you just tell us what the hell this is about?”

“Well, such _was_ my initial intention,” the courier said with forced patience, before puffing out his chest and clearing his throat importantly. “I come from the south, having travelled the long, perilous road all the way from the Redanian-Temerian border,” he announced with a genteel accent that bespoke his aristocratic origins. “I serve Her esteemed Ladyship, Baroness Mary Louisa La Valette.”

Geralt’s head snapped up at that, his every instinct on high alert. Contrary to Dandelion’s wild fantasies, they had exactly one contact at La Valette Castle, and that person was especially disinclined to engage in idle correspondence – romantic or otherwise.

By the looks of it, Dandelion’s instincts were also on high alert, but for all the wrong reasons. The poet was positively beaming. “The baroness? Really?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Geralt supplied without prompting.

“You’ve got a bad feeling about everything,” Dandelion said cheerfully before turning to shoo the courier away. “Thank you, my good man, I shall take it from here. Upon my word, you shall have your reply within the hour, but in the meantime be so kind as to respect your mistress’s privacy in her amorous affairs.”

The courier looked like he was about to take exception, but then he merely gave a stiff bow and went off to find a table of his own, leaving Dandelion to fiddle with his mysterious envelope like a youth fondling a lover at Belleteyn.

“Oh, you’re going to love this, I can just tell.” Dandelion raised a smug eyebrow at his friend. “And by ‘love’ I mean, you’re going to turn so green with envy, folk will mistake you for an especially ugly male dryad.”

“There’s no such thing as a male dryad, a fact I’m sure you’re perfectly aware of considering your extensive personal research on the subject.”

“See, Master Killjoy, that’s exactly why _I_ receive letters of blind, undying adoration and you don’t. This is one battle you shall never win.”

“Step outside, try me in a different sort of battle,” Geralt suggested.

“Ah, but then we’d miss out on this,” Dandelion smirked, brandishing that damned envelope in his face. “Geralt, is it just me or–”

“It’s you.”

Dandelion’s smile broadened into a grin. “– _or_ are jealousy’s cruel talons slowly tearing you apart even as we speak?”

“If by ‘jealousy’ you mean profound aggravation bordering on murderous intent – then yes, truly you’ve read me like an open book,” Geralt subtly hinted.

“Hmph. Well, I do suppose it’s high time we got to the bottom of this enigmatic epistle,” Dandelion drawled with an air of grand generosity, and proceeded to pry off the blank seal with no small degree of giddiness.

Although he knew better, Geralt made one last attempt to reason with his besotted friend. “Look, Dandelion–”

Dandelion tutted dismissively before pulling out a letter, which he folded open with eager hands. His eyes darted rapidly and greedily over the paper.

Geralt sighed in defeat. Deciding he was not nearly drunk enough for this – whatever ‘this’ turned out to be – the witcher reached for his tankard of ale standing forgotten on the table while Dandelion busied himself with his correspondence.

_Please, just once, let my instincts be wrong._

But when he put his drink back down, the witcher knew his hope to be in vain – for a change. All traces of merriment had fallen from Dandelion’s features, and his eyes were wide and aghast when he looked across the table.

“It’s Vernon Roche,” Dandelion intoned, stunned.

“Yeah, I suspected as much,” Geralt said impatiently. “What does he write? Trouble with the baroness? Armed strife among the Temerian nobility?”

“No, he…” Dandelion gave him an earnest look, momentarily at a loss for words. “Geralt, this letter is from Ves. Roche never made it to the baroness.”

The cold fist of an ice elemental seemed to grip the witcher’s heart. “He’s not–?”

“He’s in Redanian custody.” Dandelion quickly scanned the letter again. “I’m afraid she says no more.”

The fist of ice threatened to crush his heart into pieces. Radovid the Stern – more calculating than the advisors serving under him, more ruthless than the hunting dogs in his kennel. Geralt fought the impulse to snatch the letter out of Dandelion’s hands, deeming it wiser to divert his friend’s attention from the shock tugging at his face.

“Read it to me,” he said instead. “All of it. Don’t skip a word.”

For once, Dandelion dispensed with the witticisms and nodded. “Just so you know, she’s being awfully vague. Evidently for prudency reasons, and not the illicit-love-affair kind either.”

At Geralt’s terse nod, Dandelion, mindful of their surroundings, started to read aloud in a hushed voice:

> “D,
> 
> You once posed me the question who can sleep all the way through the night and say he is content. For sleep is the model of death, and one will have plenty of rest once in the grave. In all honesty, at the time I never fancied I’d see the truth in that statement. Yet here I am, foregoing sleep and writing the night away.”

Dandelion awkwardly cleared his throat and shot Geralt a sheepish look. The witcher shook his head with a long-suffering sigh and gestured at his friend to continue.

> “Ere I get your hopes up – among other things – know it is not lipstick that adorns this envelope, but a kiss in my own blood. That ought to set the tone of my letter.”

Only then did Geralt understand why his nerves had been on edge. Unconsciously, his witcher senses must have picked up the faintest tang of blood.

> “Forgive my tasteless ploy, but hopefully, in this way, the letter will appear sufficiently risqué to be opened without delay, yet innocuous enough to reach you at all. Regretfully, my tale is neither risqué nor innocuous.”

Geralt frowned and took another swig of ale. The rich flavor was lost on him, though.

> “I have safely reached our destination. My companion has not, courtesy of King Radovid of Redania. He was captured and taken aboard the HMS Oxenfurt-Tretogor. While I desired naught more than to come to his aid, a most precious parcel was in my care at the time, and I could not endanger it. Thenceforth, his fate has been unknown to me.”

Dandelion interrupted his reading and glanced up. “Parcel?”

“Anaïs,” Geralt clarified. “Go on.”

> “I know my companion went to meet with our gray-haired friend on the eve of our journey, and I cannot curb the hope that there was an ulterior purpose to this meeting, that my companion has let said friend in on our plan as a failsafe. If so, now is the time to act.”

Geralt stilled at the mention of his and Roche’s secret rendezvous. If only the man _had_ let him be a part of his stupid, patriotic plan. If only Geralt had ceased his own rant long enough to offer to go with him. If only he’d slapped some sense into Roche, instead of… well…

 _If only._ Those two words might as well become his epitaph.

> “My companion, I’m sure, would berate me for clinging to a lost cause like a knightly fool instead of resigning myself to this world’s harsh truths with the dignity befitting one of my occupation. Screw dignity and screw my occupation, I say.”

They could not help but share a wan smile. Attagirl, Ves.

> “If fortune smiles upon us and this letter finds its way into your hands, please, contact our mutual friend. Find out what can be done. I’ve no one else to turn to. In case I do not hear from you, as soon as I’m fit to travel again, I will find him myself and stand by his side. For you were right, rest will come to me no sooner than the grave.”

Being a storyteller first and foremost, Dandelion marked a dramatic pause and let her oath linger. “Signed ‘V,’” he concluded quietly.

After he’d finished reading, neither man spoke for long seconds. Around them, the drunken merrymaking and clanking of goblets seemed muted down to a faint hum in some distant, illusory world.

“You and Vernon Roche have spoken after Loc Muinne?” Dandelion prodded eventually.

Geralt hesitated, but he could see no harm in telling Dandelion the truth, or part of it anyway. “He did come to see me afterwards, but he told me nothing of his plans, save that he was bound for La Valette Castle with Anaïs. Definitely didn’t mention my being a failsafe.”

Near the bar, a fat drunkard accosted a lanky congener and began to consecutively question the nature of the man’s relationship with his sister, mother and the family dog. Geralt watched the interaction absently, his mind elsewhere. “But then, I’ve never needed his permission.”

Cue Lanky punching Fatty’s lights out by busting him square in the nose. Some classics never go out of style, Geralt mused as he turned back to Dandelion. “The HMS Oxenfurt-Tretogor… a Redanian ship, I take it?”

Dandelion watched him with shrewd eyes and nodded, the large plume perched atop his hat bobbing gently. “A military vessel, and Radovid’s personal galleon to boot. And before you ask: no, to my knowledge it’s not docked down in the Oxenfurt harbor at present.”

“Tretogor it is, then.” Geralt was surprised to find himself on his feet. The victorious drunkard, on the other hand, slain by a mightier foe, collapsed into an alcohol-induced stupor on top of his equally unconscious victim.

Dandelion picked up his lute and proceeded to tune it with pretentious innocence. “You know, I hate to be the sensible one in this relationship–”

“You don’t and you’re not.”

“– _but_ you’re an itinerant monster slayer without home or hearth, and I, like my floral namesake, am a creature forever adrift on the wind, going where my muses’ gentle puffs guide me–”

“By all means, Dandelion, don’t kill my suspense by getting to the point.”

Unperturbed, the bard carried on, “–even _should_ you give in to your hero complex, again, and stage a daring prison escape, _again_ , have you given any thought to your blue-blooded foe? Where, pray tell, will you two possibly hide from Radovid the Stern’s ill-famed wrath?”

Geralt fell silent. Omitting the unnecessary dramatics, he was forced to admit Dandelion had a point. Roche had a dubious knack for making enemies, and between himself and Dandelion – barring the poet’s petty dalliances or far-off Kaer Morhen – there was not a single safe house in all the North to flee to.

None, except one.

“Good thing we can count one respectable member of society among our circle of friends, then.”

“Among _our_ friends?” Dandelion waved a nonchalant hand. “Impossible.”

“How about a former advisor to the king of Temeria, or a founding member of the Lodge of Sorceresses?” Geralt hinted.

“ _Triss_?” Dandelion rolled his eyes. “Geralt, calling that plan reckless would be a euphemism even by your singular standards. Need I remind you that half the North’s mages would’ve been burned at the stake by now, their heads chopped off for good measure, if it hadn’t been for your and Triss’s timely intervention at Loc Muinne? How merciful do you think Radovid is going to be if the very person who spoke up for the Lodge is exposed as harboring Redania’s prime enemy of the state?”

“This may come off as a tactical marvel, but I intend for Radovid _not_ to find out. At any rate, you got a better idea?”

“For once: no, I don’t.” Dandelion sighed in defeat. “This could end very badly and very painfully, very quickly. But as Zoltan would say: we’ll plough that whore when we get there.”

“Charming, Dandelion. And regarding your sudden fondness for the word ‘we’ – I’m going alone.”

“Oh no,” Dandelion firmly shook his head. “No, no, no. _You_ , my dear witcher, have a chronic death wish – which _I_ , your trusted companion and chronicler, refuse to let you fulfill alone.”

“My chronicler may wish to reconsider, if he intends to keep me alive till his next ballad. If I’m sighted anywhere near Tretogor, Radovid will make the connection with Roche’s escape in a heartbeat. And I have as much chance of staying undetected with you by my side as you have of resisting the charms of a succubus harem.”

“Says the totally anonymous Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, the Butcher of Blaviken, the Casanova of Kaer Morhen, the–”

“Listen, I– what?!”

“You really ought to listen to the songs sung about you sometime,” Dandelion suggested matter-of-factly.

“I think I’ll pass,” Geralt grumbled. “Anyway, nothing a cloak or cowl can’t hide – which is more than can be said for that perpetually wagging tongue of yours.”

“Sticks and stones, my friend,” Dandelion shrugged, emphasizing his words by plucking lazily at his lute. “But fine, have it your way. While you’re off playing the hero, _someone_ had better scout ahead to Vizima and give Triss a fair warning of her future role as a criminal accessory, anyway.”

“Stop by the La Valettes on your way south,” Geralt said, ignoring the poet’s theatrics through hard-won habit. “Before Ves is well enough to get herself killed.”

A smile played around Dandelion’s mouth as he rose from his chair and followed Geralt upstairs to his room. “Geralt, after this is over, do you think you could go a fortnight without getting thrown into prison or busting other people out of it? I’m running out of fresh material for my ballads.”

“Came to Oxenfurt to do just that, actually,” Geralt replied as he shrugged on the brand-new leather jacket he’d purchased upon his arrival in the city. “And don’t act like you _haven’t_ been aching for something eventful to happen ever since I cut short your crowning role on Vergen’s deadly theater stage.”

“I suppose,” Dandelion conceded, leaning against the doorpost and watching him pack a few basic necessities. “But can you blame an artist for having his audience’s best interests at heart? After all, do you know that riveting ballad wherein the White Wolf, battle-worn after his grand adventures, indulges in a dull, most un-witcher-like bit of repose?” He stepped forward and clapped a hand on Geralt’s shoulder. “Yeah, me neither. So kindly get a move on.”

* * *

Dusk had fallen by the time Geralt slowed down and nudged his mare through the city gates, her nostrils flaring and flanks glistening with sweat and rain. The sunset was… sunny. And wet. Good thing Dandelion wasn’t around, or the bard would no doubt have indulged his romantic heart, which for some unfortunate reason seemed to be perpetually connected to his mouth.

As the splashing of mud gave way to the cadenced clicking of hooves on cobblestones, the witcher drew his hood a little further over his white hair. Given the current downpour his cloaked appearance should not arouse much suspicion, but he still received quite a few distrustful stares from the few folk that dared venture outside after dark.

For the first time since leaving Oxenfurt at a gallop, Geralt had time to think. He’d come charging into the Redanian capital like a scruffy white knight; now what the hell was he supposed to do next? Ask the city guard about a certain Temerian prisoner? Walk up to the royal palace with his sword drawn and challenge Radovid to a duel of honor? Either option would be sure to land him in a prison cell of his own – if he was lucky.

Roaming the streets, the witcher finally formed the plan to stake out the city jail, maybe eavesdrop on some guards or look for anything suspicious. Not exactly his area of expertise, but since the true master of reconnaissance and covert operations had landed his ass in prison, he’d have to make do.

Lost in thought, he passed a patrol of the Order of the Flaming Rose and drew rein so brusquely his horse gave an indignant squeal. In his haste, it had completely slipped his mind that Vizima’s black sheep had found a new shepherd in Radovid of Redania.

_Maybe, just maybe…_

Dismounting quickly, Geralt led his horse by the bridle and accosted the nearest beggar, offering a handful of orens in exchange for directions. The old pauper crabbily asked if he didn’t have any crowns, but relented after a death glare from Geralt. The slurred instructions took the witcher halfway across the city, but eventually the Order’s new headquarters loomed into view.

Somehow, even the building had a condescending air about itself.

Near the gilded entrance several knights of the Order stood watch, their crimson armor gleaming under the pelting rain. The place seemed remarkably well guarded for a cloister; evidently the events in Vizima had left their mark.

Wasting no time, Geralt left his mare at a hitching post and walked up to the nearest knight. “Hi. I need to talk to Siegfried.”

Behind his visor, the guard’s face hardened as if Geralt had uttered a particularly vile insult. “Our eminent Grand Master is not receiving visitors at present.”

“Grand Master?” Geralt blinked. “Did I miss something?”

“And even if he were,” the knight sneered, “His Excellency is not in the habit of entertaining flea-bitten vagrants.”

The other guards, likely bored out of their minds, watched their conversation with mild interest. It would only be a matter of time before one of them lost his patience and stepped up to investigate. And the last thing the witcher needed was to draw undue attention to himself.

“I’m no vagrant, I’m–”

“Yes?” the knight pressed.

_Faced with a pretty damn stupid dilemma right now._

“–a friend?” Geralt finished lamely, all too cognizant of his rather plain and shady-looking attire.

“Oh, I’m sure,” the strangely loquacious guard simpered. “The kind o’ mate that drinks coin away like a hammered fish? Or the kind that puts a knife in his fellow man’s back? Your appearance, verily, leaves me on the fence.” His gauntlet-clad hand made a gesture of dismissal. “Either way, scram.”

“But–”

“Unless the, erm, _gentleman_ wishes to state his name and business? Or show his pretty face, for starters?” The knight raised his eyebrows mockingly. “No? Goodbye then.”

“Wait.”

The plea earned him an unfriendly look; but on the plus side, the guard had yet to unsheathe his sword and plunge it between Geralt’s ribs.

“Would you take a message to him?”

A chilly pause, then the guard lifted his chin. “Possibly.”

“Tell him…” Geralt racked his brains for a hint that wouldn’t give him away, something that would mean nothing to anyone but Siegfried. Looking around aimlessly, his eye fell on the crimson banners emblazoned with a fiery rose, reminiscent of the cloister in the Temple Square in Vizima.

Beneath his hood, the witcher smirked. “Tell him an old friend from Vizima is in need of another virgin’s tear.”

* * *

One enigmatic message later, Geralt found himself being summoned to the Grand Master’s office. Pleased with his little act of cunning, the witcher stepped through a set of double doors to be led into a strikingly austere chamber, devoid of the earthly riches typically favored by spiritual leaders.

In front of the fireplace knelt a man, hands folded in front of his chest in silent prayer. The flames danced over his stylized suit of armor, partly hidden underneath an ornate tabard sporting the Order’s coat-of-arms. His robes trailed down to high boots as he rose to greet his visitor.

“Pray leave us alone.”

The sound of that lofty voice brought a smile to Geralt’s travel-worn face.

His armed escort bowed reverently and closed the door on their way out. The witcher stared after their retreat to make sure they were alone, then turned around and pulled off his hood to reveal his ruffled white mane.

“The White Wolf himself, Geralt of Rivia.” Siegfried solemnly placed both hands on his shoulders and sized him up. “You’ve not changed at all.”

“Can’t say the same of you,” Geralt grinned, taking in his friend’s classy appearance. “What the hell, Siegfried?”

The new Grand Master dropped his hands and returned the smile. “I assure you, the astonishment was all mine. After the unfortunate, ah, incident with Jacques de Aldersberg, the Order seemed fated to go down with its fallen leader. Yet fate, it seems, is ever a fickle thing. But please,” he interrupted himself, gesturing to a pair of chairs by the hearth, “take a seat.”

Geralt, dripping wet, gladly complied. Meanwhile, Siegfried moved over to a cabinet and took out a jug and two plain goblets. Pouring them both some wine, he handed one cup to Geralt before taking the other and sitting down in the chair next to his.

In that moment, sitting side by side with an old friend, the witcher was thrown back to easier times – back when his biggest worry was sneaking a bottle of liquor past the crazy old hag that was Shani’s landlady.

For a short while, the two men caught up with each other’s lives. They talked about the last time they had been face-to-face, about the clash between the Order of the Flaming Rose and the Scoia’tael, between Yaevinn and Siegfried, about the choice Geralt ultimately never made – or failed to make. Back when he’d been not quite as old and not quite as tired and could still look upon his famed neutrality as the lesser evil.

“As much as I resented you at the time for your decision, Geralt, you were right to step away in the end.” Siegfried’s voice broke in on his thoughts, reading him just as well as he had as a humble knight.

His friend filled him in on the Order’s decimation and exile from Temeria, on the burden of penitence that came with it – their ancestral sin, as Siegfried called it – and their search for a new and pure leader.

“The quest proved no easy one,” Siegfried said, growing melancholic. “Many of our men – good men – died in Old Vizima, and those who lived oft found doubt instilled in their hearts, robbed of their most precious possession – their faith. But my flame never waned, and the right folk must have taken notice. Though I concede my father’s reputation is likely to have tipped the scales in my favor also,” he added good-naturedly, raising his cup.

Amused, Geralt returned the toast. If a leader was sought to restore the Order to its roots of piety and devotion, it probably didn’t hurt to be the son of the inimitable Eyck of Denesle, knight errant extraordinaire.

“‘Tis but a temporary arrangement,” Siegfried was quick to add. “But if I do well… who knows what future lies concealed for me within the flames of destiny?”

The heartening words felt like a punch to the gut. Geralt looked away; suddenly, he hated himself for the selfish reason behind his visit, which could bring disgrace or danger or both upon his friend.

“But enough about me,” Siegfried concluded merrily. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve not been idle either.”

Geralt snorted at the euphemism. “If it sounds too rosy to be true, it is. If it sounds too horrible to be true, reality was worse.”

“Pray tell, then, what one should make of your rumored transition from witcher to slayer of either kings or dragons, depending on the source?”

Tired of having to defend himself, Geralt said nothing.

Siegfried went on, “Those who know you not in person would consider the latter a preposterous fiction and the former a fated conclusion, given your temperament. But to me – and, I’m confident, to any soul that has the privilege of calling you a friend – I daresay the exact opposite rings true.”

Touched, Geralt didn’t quite know what to say, so he simply inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“But rumors are like cockatrices: they breed faster than we can eradicate them. So you are being understandably cautious in visiting Tretogor incognito.”

Geralt stared down and guiltily swirled the contents of his goblet. “My being here incognito… let’s just say it’s for more substantial reasons than a mere rumor,” he admitted.

“Indeed?” His friend quirked an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain himself.

Pressing his lips together, Geralt resolved to just get it out into the open. “Siegfried, I need to break a man out of prison.”

Just like that, the jovial atmosphere died down, and a silence ensued which hummed with the echo of his admission. Leaning forward to rest his chin on his folded hands, Siegfried sighed and briefly shut his eyes.

“I feared you would ask that,” he spoke eventually, unsmiling as he stared into the hearth. “Your arrival was too timely to be coincidental.”

It bordered on eerie, really, how closely the names of Geralt of Rivia and Vernon Roche had become linked in the span of scarcely four months. The witcher took another sip of wine to whet his courage, dreading to ask the question that had been on his lips all evening. “Will you help me?” he asked at last.

There was another long silence, during which Siegfried sat motionless. Geralt willed himself not to break it. He knew he was asking a lot, knew his old friend had no good reason to help him and plenty of reasons _not_ to or turn him in, even.

“Yes,” the Grand Master eventually confided to the flames. “I will, as a final favor to Temeria. Foltest was a just king, who showed us lenience even in our darkest hour. My Order may answer to the eagle now, but the lily has suffered enough. And if her last hope lies with a motley pair of guardians, so be it.”

“I’m just a witcher,” Geralt demurred.

“So you insist on reminding us all, yet one need not preclude the other.” Siegfried looked at him with that usual expression of chivalry that made Geralt squirm in his seat, a demeanor that remained frustratingly immune to the witcher’s innate cynicism. “I trust your judgment, White One – over Radovid’s, if need be.”

_That makes one of us, at least._

Geralt wisely kept the thought to himself.

* * *

They spent the rest of the evening planning the breakout. Night had fallen by the time Siegfried stole into one of the cloister’s side rooms to wake Geralt, who had made the most of this brief interlude by catching a few hours of sleep.

“It is time.”

Feeling well-rested and focused, the witcher rose from his cot. Still barefoot, he grabbed a small but vital part of their plan off the table, and tucked it away down the front of his trousers in case he would be searched. As a finishing touch, he uncorked a bottle of nekker blood and poured a sparing amount over his nude upper body. The touch of the cold, pungent liquid made him shiver.

Standing back, Siegfried considered his bloodied, half-naked form for a moment before stepping forward and drawing a dagger from his robes. Geralt froze instinctively, but his friend crouched down and carefully cut a number of irregular tears into the fabric of his trousers, then straightened up and nodded approvingly at Geralt’s properly disheveled appearance.

When he took a short rope from his belt, however, Siegfried faltered. “Once we leave this room, there shall be no turning back. At the risk of unduly repeating myself: if you’re caught down there you’re on your own, and I shall deny ever having made your acquaintance. I cannot afford to antagonize Radovid and jeopardize my Order by smuggling out the both of you. So let me ask you one last time, witcher, and I beg of you to think your answer over carefully. Are you quite sure this is worth the risk?”

“He is.” The words left his mouth before the thought had time to form in his head.

Siegfried nodded again, this time in resignation, and proceeded to deftly fasten Geralt’s hands behind his back in a faux knot. After sharing one last look, he pulled a prisoner hood over Geralt’s head, plunging him in a darkness so total even his witcher eyes were powerless against it.

* * *

Getting inside a maximum security prison turned out to be a disturbingly easy feat, provided one was escorted by the Grand Master of the Order of the Flaming Rose. All it took was a disdainful little speech about another “godless heretic” and the gates to the underworld opened with no further questions asked.

“So far so good,” Siegfried murmured as the doors shut behind them with an ominous bang.

The chilly underground air hit Geralt’s exposed skin while a dank smell clogged his nostrils. The last thing that reached his ears was a guard offering to take the prisoner off Siegfried’s hands, only to be brushed off in no uncertain terms. From then on, the silence was deafening. No bawdy prisoner songs, loud catcalls or lewd gibes – only the stench of mildew and despair.

Neither man spoke as one led the other down ever further, ever deeper. Marching on blindly, Geralt drew courage from the steady hand on his shoulder guiding him. If it hadn’t been for that small gesture of reassurance, he really would have believed himself to be walking to his doom.

Geralt reflected on the witcher neutrality he had discussed with Siegfried earlier that evening. Perhaps the time had come to admit to himself that that neutrality had died a quiet death a long time ago.

In hindsight, it was nothing like losing one’s virginity. There was no big turning point, no before and after. Just little breadcrumbs that led all the way back to the blood-stained solar of La Valette Castle, where Letho of Gulet earned the epithet of kingslayer for the second – and last – time.

To Flotsam and Geralt’s refusal to walk away from the regicides. Not because he’d needed to clear his name, not even because he felt he owed Roche for saving his hide, but simply because he wanted to find Foltest’s murderer and avenge the fallen king.

To the night of drunken antics with the Blue Stripes, and the morning after when he chose not to get rid of his stupid tattoo. He’d taken a strange pride in the mark; even more so when he’d run into Roche later that day. The commander had taken one look at his freshly adorned neck before rolling his eyes and turning away with a scowl. (Later, though, a very out-of-place smirk had tugged at Roche’s mouth when he thought Geralt wasn’t looking.)

To Loc Muinne and the half-mast blue-and-silver banners of the Temerian enclave. A sight that had hurt more than Geralt had been prepared for and made him realize like a stab to the chest that during his seven-month interlude as Foltest’s bodyguard, Vizima had become the closest thing to a home outside of Kaer Morhen.

In the end, his concern for Triss and his desire to learn the truth behind the regicides had driven Geralt upon a different path than Roche – one of the hardest choices he’d ever been forced to make. Instead, he’d ended up poking his swords into Nilfgaardian affairs, treading on the toes of their expensive shoes while using their ambassador as a human shield.

The famed witcher neutrality – yet another dumb folk tale.

Siegfried’s voice, lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, chased away his thoughts. “This is it, Geralt.”

A gentle tug on his shoulder made him come to a halt. The witcher freed his hands with ease and pulled off his hood, eyes instantly at home in the dim passageway. No guards in sight, which he suspected Siegfried to have had a hand in.

Siegfried took a key off his keychain and handed it to Geralt in a staid gesture. “Rumor has it Radovid has stopped at nothing to prolong his death throes. The sight shan’t be a pretty one… and I shudder to think what havoc this foul treatment has wreaked upon his mind.”

“How can you serve a man like that?” Geralt growled before he could help it.

Siegfried returned his stare, unfazed. “How can you befriend a man like that?”

Any potential comeback died on Geralt’s lips. Siegfried offered him a look of sympathy, then proceeded to unlock the cell and hold the door open with a courtesy as misplaced as it was genuine. “Farewell, my friend,” he said quietly. “May the eternal fire light your path.”

“Godspeed, Siegfried,” the witcher rejoined as he stepped inside. “And thanks.”

Siegfried gave a final nod, and shut the heavy door behind him with a hollow thud that sounded too definitive for his liking. It reminded him a little too much of being trapped inside a stone sarcophagus with a man-eating monster on the prowl.

Shaking off the decidedly unhelpful mental image, Geralt stepped away from the door and blanched.

Chained to the wall by his neck and ankle, with an iron chain connecting neck cuff to shackled wrists, stood a gaunt figure, wearing nothing but a prisoner hood and a well-remembered pair of black leather trousers.

The witcher felt his throat constrict. The last time they had been face-to-face, that man had lain underneath him, arching up and begging for his touch as Geralt had slid his hand down those trousers; caressed up ribs that hadn’t been quite so pronounced; pressed kisses to largely uninjured, unbruised, unbloodied skin. Now, stepping closer, the witcher swallowed down bile at the blood stains on that Temerian medallion.

“Roche.”

No reaction, but the scent of life had not faded from him yet. Terrified of what might lurk beneath the thick fabric, Geralt leaned in, pausing for an unsure moment before lowering his voice to a murmur.

“Vernon, it’s me,” he warned softly.

Still nothing. Bracing himself for the worst, the witcher reached up and delicately lifted the hood off.

At last Roche’s face greeted him, ashen and gaunt but _whole_. His dark-rimmed, bloodshot eyes met Geralt’s for a blank moment before a desperate laugh burst from his lips, as if fate had played a cruel joke on him. It was a harsh, unpleasant sound and the reaction both baffled and unsettled the witcher.

Laughter breaking off just as abruptly, Roche tore his eyes away with visible effort. “You’re not real,” he mumbled to himself. “You can’t possibly be real.”

His voice was grating as a rasp, and Geralt had to strain his ears to catch the words. Either Roche’s throat was hoarse from screaming, or the tissue had been burned by some boiling liquid he’d been made to swallow. Possibly both.

Geralt frowned. “I’m as real as you are.”

Another uneven laugh, even uglier than the last. “Yes, exactly.” Roche closed his eyes, effectively shutting him out, and whispered under his breath, “By the gods, if naught else, spare me _this_ punishment.”

“Will you shut up?” The quiet lament triggered something deep and aching inside Geralt, like a covert stab wound that slowly, imperceptibly drained his lifeblood away.

His trained eye took in Roche’s abused body, his watery red eyes and deadened stare, the beads of sweat on his forehead even though the cell was freezing cold to their naked upper bodies. A pang of some unknown emotion made his heart cringe.

“I was afraid you’d died,” he confessed quietly, acknowledging that fear at long last even to himself.

Roche huffed mirthlessly. “I’ve told you before: I’m not so easy to kill.” Then, as a detached afterthought, “Which in current circumstances I’d consider less of a blessing and more of a curse.”

“What did they do to you?”

“Nothing I haven’t done to others in my day.” Roche looked down at his own body and broke into a demented half-grin, as if seeing the torturer’s handiwork for the first time. “Why, it’s almost a work of art. Artist turned living canvas – there are worse ways to go.”

The smile didn’t reach his eyes. Then again, nothing much seemed to.

“If I wanted drama, I would’ve brought Dandelion.”

Roche didn’t seem to hear him, and Geralt had the uneasy impression the commander was looking without seeing, staring straight through his surroundings – including his visitor. “Get out of here, Geralt,” he implored in a hollow tone. “It’s too late for me, anyway.”

“If you’re implying what I think you’re implying, you’re not. Dying, I mean.” Not for the first time, Geralt strove to be the voice of reason between them.

The ghost of a smile lingered on Roche’s mouth. “A witcher could suffer through this and live perhaps, but not a man. Trust me, I’ve seen man’s limits.” Roche searched his face with lackluster yet disturbingly lucid eyes. “Don’t tell me you can’t smell death on me.”

In response to Geralt’s unyielding silence, he curled his upper lip in a phantom of his usual aggression. “Look me in the eye and tell me septic blood does not course through my veins as we speak, poisoning my body as slowly and surely as syphilis after a romp with one of the whores from the Eager Thighs brothel in Vizima.” A sharp, military-like edge had crept into his tone. “ _Tell me_.”

“Actually, I beg to differ on both counts.” Geralt _did_ look him in the eye then. “First, the owner of said brothel happens to be a friend of mine. I have a feeling she’d take offense.”

“Geralt–” Roche said irritably.

“As for your second, admittedly more valid point: Triss will know what to do. As soon as we’re out of here, I’m taking you to her house in Vizima.”

Despite his earlier scorn, a fleeting hint of emotion passed over Roche’s features at the mention of his fatherland’s capital – the final beats of a tired heart. “We’re not getting out of here.”

Before Geralt could remonstrate, Roche went on inexorably, “You are, alone… or not at all.”

The witcher found himself at a loss for words while trying to fight the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Crippling defeatism on Roche’s part was about the last obstacle he had foreseen. And he was quickly running out of options, time, and patience.

“You saved me from being executed once. Don’t you think it’s time I returned the favor?”

“You’re not returning the favor, you’re undoing my efforts,” Roche muttered darkly, looking away. “Shit, you weren’t supposed to know…”

Geralt narrowed his eyes, not liking where this was going. “Supposed to know what?” he asked carefully.

Roche scowled, as if even now he had a hard time tolerating any slip-ups on his part. “… to know you’re not the only man capable of choosing the lesser evil,” he finished with visible reluctance.

“Choosing the– what the hell does that mean?”

When Roche refused to spill, Geralt stared him down, the wheels in his head turning at the implication behind those words. “You chose to be here, didn’t you? You chose to be captured.”

“I chose the future of an entire nation over my own,” Roche stated flatly. “Not the worst trade-off I’ve ever made, and by far the fairest to all parties concerned.”

To hear the man treat himself as yet another expendable asset, yet another life to be snuffed out… Over the years, the witcher had forgotten what anger – real anger – felt like. But just as an old curse could resurface after years of lying dormant, he recognized its sting with shocking ease. “Don’t you talk to me about fair, you son of a whore.”

The words left his mouth before he had time to think them through, but their effect was as scary as it was beautiful. Shoulders stiffened as Roche slowly lifted his chin, for the first time staring _at_ rather than _through_ him. A hint of fire simmered in those formerly deadened eyes.

“Take these shackles off me and call me that to my face, I _dare_ you.”

For long seconds, the witcher just stood and concentrated on breathing in an effort to tame his anger. Then, realizing he was all but crushing Siegfried’s key in his fist, he decided to get down to business lest he changed his mind.

Geralt knelt down at Roche’s feet and let out a curse. Whatever other horrors the man had been subjected to, it was clear at one point an instep borer had been involved. The iron cuff around Roche’s ankle seemed little more than cruel decoration, a derisive afterthought.

For one helpless moment, the witcher just stared at _(through)_ the open wounds, his earlier anger forgotten in the face of a queasiness similar to when he overdosed on potions. It was clear that without the neck cuff currently supporting his weight, Roche could barely stand, much less walk.

He looked up to find Roche watching him, expression too calm, too accepting. “Knew you wouldn’t dare,” he said with something akin to a smile.

Geralt could not help it, he let out a stunned laugh. “Fuck you.”

Refusing to dwell on his feeling of dismay, he made short work of the chain around Roche’s ankle before turning to his bound wrists. Roche watched his actions with mild interest, as if not quite sure what to do with himself or what to make of this impromptu rescue.

“Can you hold yourself up?” Geralt asked, eyeing the cuff around his neck.

Roche shot him a glare, which Geralt found a lot easier to deal with. “What does it fucking look like?”

Too tired to argue, Geralt stepped forward and wrapped a supportive arm around Roche’s bloodied midsection, feeling the other man give a start at the unanticipated move. The commander’s skin was abnormally hot and clammy to the touch, betraying a high fever.

As his free hand slipped the key inside the lock, Geralt felt Roche slowly, hesitantly accept what was being offered. The last vestiges of anger left Geralt as weak fingers roamed up his back to grasp his shoulders in support.

Once freed of his bonds, Roche allowed himself to be lowered to the floor and sagged back against the wall with his eyes closed, visibly exhausted by even this slight physical exertion.

As his eye fell upon the other man’s exposed throat, Geralt snarled his teeth bare. In that moment, he felt every bit the bloodthirsty monster he and his brethren were _ad nauseam_ portrayed as.

Seared into Roche’s skin like a livestock brand was an imprint of the Redanian eagle.

“That fucking cocksucker,” Geralt hissed, shaking with the fury of a man possessed.

Roche reopened his eyes and caught him staring. “The eagle, am I right?” he asked aloofly. At Geralt’s strained silence, he let out a jagged laugh. “’Tis but flesh. I’ve left a more ineffaceable mark on Redania’s hide than it could ever leave on me.”

Geralt felt the teeth of anger flare up more fiercely, but he took a deep breath to put a muzzle on them. It was a selfish emotion. Revenge had always been more Roche’s forte than his, anyway. Right now, all he cared about was getting out of that damn dungeon in one piece.

The witcher sneaked a hand down the front of his trousers, causing a flicker of discomfiture to play over Roche’s face. “What are you–?”

“I’m getting us out of here, _both_ of us. But in our current state, plunging headlong into the sewers would equal certain death.”

“The sewers?” Roche’s eyes snapped back up to his face, suddenly wide awake. Sewers equalled monsters – Geralt had no doubt he’d drilled that much into him. “Not to doubt your heart, but I’ve attended executions with better survival rates.”

“No thanks to you, I imagine,” Geralt mumbled, secretly relieved the soldier in Roche had not given up the fight altogether. He pulled a small vial filled with a foul-looking black liquid from his trousers, doing his best to ignore the stirring of his medallion.

Over the course of their partnership, however, Roche had taught himself to keep an eye on it at all times, and he now looked between the wolf’s head and the potion with a frown of suspicion. “That one’s new to me,” he said, nodding at the vial.

“We call it the Witcher’s Irony,” Geralt informed him, for once grateful for the innate lack of inflection in his voice.

Roche rested his head back against the wall, visibly bracing himself for what was to come. “Something tells me I’m not going to like this.”

“Nor are you supposed to. Even among witcher schools, this potion’s considered a necessary evil at best.”

“Sounds awful comforting,” Roche said, keeping watery eyes fixated on Geralt, even now trying to gauge his reaction.

“Yeah well, the mess you’ve gotten yourself into didn’t exactly leave me a wide range of options,” Geralt gruffly pointed out. “There’s little hope of finding our way back in this labyrinth, and no chance of getting past the guards even if we do. And the sole alternative is walking naked and unarmed into a dank, monster-infested death trap.”

“Still waiting for the motivational bit,” Roche pressed, expression torn between impatience and apprehension.

“Let’s say one were to rely on senses even the darkest maze cannot deceive, and one were in possession of a set of deadly weapons undetectable by any guard… In short, if one were to bring out the animal in oneself…”

With a puzzled frown, Roche opened his mouth to speak. Then, catching Geralt’s dark look, he closed it again and warily eyed the black potion in his hand. “Fucking hell,” he breathed. “Is it… safe?”

Geralt laughed mirthlessly. “The man who locked me in here asked me the exact same thing tonight, while I was brewing the potion. Siegfried’s an old friend from Vizima, a knight of the Order turned interim Grand Master. He wanted my assurance that none of his men would come to harm, so I told him to think of this potion as a preventative medicine… I didn’t tell him it runs the risk of outweighing the disease.”

Roche looked at him long and hard. “You lied to the Grand Master of the Order of the Flaming Rose?”

“Worse, I lied to a trustful friend,” Geralt admitted. “Then again, the truthfulness of my statement will not be in my hands so much as in yours.”

“Mine?” Roche sputtered. “You don’t expect me to drink that?”

“No. I expect you to keep watch when I do.”

Seizing on any excuse to evade Roche’s appalled stare, Geralt proceeded to take off his wolf medallion. “Vernon, listen to me. I will be–” he weighed the next word with care, “– _different_. In far more primal and dangerous ways than mere guise. While my intellectual capacities will be unaffected, I will lose my restraint, my moral conscience, my–”

“Whole bloody identity,” Roche supplied, frown deepening.

Geralt grimaced, but did not deny it. “Without an external source to keep me grounded, this potion may very well end up destroying me and, by extension, any and all around me. I’ll need somebody to be my memory, my humanity.”

Roche stared at him with bloodshot eyes. “You reckon in this sorry state I can stop you from going on a ploughing killing spree?”

Geralt looked him square in the eye. “Yes.”

Roche continued to look doubtful, but when Geralt proffered his medallion to him, he accepted it all the same.

“Once we’ve made it out, head for the southern gate,” Geralt instructed. “Siegfried will have arranged for a means of transport. From there onward, I imagine you know the way.”

He waited until Roche gave a grudging nod. Deeming it best to waste no more time, Geralt moved to sit down on his knees. “Let me focus for a minute, find my center. It’ll be the one lifeline available to me.”

Roche sat back and observed without interruption, familiar with his meditation routine by now.

The witcher slowly rolled his neck, then shut his eyes and turned his focus inward. At first, he was acutely aware of Roche’s eyes on him, but soon he’d closed off his mind, ears tuning out everything but the sound of his own breathing and the steady beating of his heart – quiet reminders of what it meant to be human.

He thought of the rose of remembrance that the potion had consumed, of Triss’s look of quiet heartbreak as she handed the rose back to him after Loc Muinne, after learning that his memory had been restored. This flower was not destined to be given to a lover and live forever, nor to rekindle a life once lived, but it _would_ preserve the life he lived now.

Guiding his thoughts back to the here and now, the witcher released a deep breath and reopened his eyes. He uncorked the vial and held it up to Roche in a mock toast. “See you from my other side.”

It tasted like a rotfiend’s kiss.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dandelion’s mysterious tutor is, of course, none other than Mr. Oscar Wilde.
> 
> The question Dandelion put to Ves was taken from David Slavitt’s unparalleled translation of Ovidius’ _Amores_ 2.9b:  
>  _Who can sleep all the way through the night_  
>  _and say he is content? He may indeed be rested_  
>  _but he is a fool! Sleep is the model of death,_  
>  _and he will have plenty of rest once he is in the grave._


	3. III

As a war veteran, commander of the special forces, and the king’s right-hand man, Roche had always thought he’d reach a point in life where nothing would shock him anymore.

Today, he concluded, was not that point.

A scarce three seconds after downing the bottle, Geralt doubled over with a cry of sheer agony. He pressed his forehead to the stone floor and clasped his arms over his stomach while his whole body broke out in violent tremors. Inhuman croaks of misery issued from deep down his throat as a heinous metamorphosis began to take place inside the – fortuitously sound-proof – walls of their cell.

During his military career, Roche had mastered the dubious art of biding his time whilst acts of unspeakable horror were taking place right under his nose, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Torn between compassion and morbid fascination, he sat and watched as Geralt’s spine began to curve unnaturally like a hunchback’s. All color drained from the witcher’s skin, accentuating the muscles rippling underneath as his torso and forequarters grew bulkier and bulkier. The seams of his leather trousers ripped with a sick tearing sound.

Only then did Roche see Geralt’s pallor for what it was – a fine layer of silvery-white fur – but there was no time to be shocked. The witcher’s nose and mouth elongated in a blunt muzzle, and his hands raked helplessly along the floor as crooked talons sprouted from the split skin of his fingertips.

By the end of the transformation, the creature better known as Geralt of Rivia sat huddled on the floor, quivering and retching blood. Contrary to Roche’s vague expectations, the other man bore little resemblance to the classic image of a werewolf. Indeed, the massive, cowering thing looked nothing like a wolf and everything like a crippled, hirsute carnival freak; half man, half beast.

Absurdly, Roche wondered whether Adda had looked anything alike as a striga. The original curse had been before his time, and during the latest relapse – now about a year ago – Foltest and he had been absent from Vizima. The king, unsurprisingly, had always remained exceptionally taciturn on the subject of his daughter. He made a mental note to ask the witcher twice responsible for saving Adda’s life – as soon as said witcher had reverted back to his bipedal, post-linguistic phase, that is.

“Geralt?” he asked uncertainly.

The creature whipped its ugly head in his direction, ears flattening against its skull and soulless eyes glinting menacingly in the darkness. Long silver hair fell in a thin mane around its neck.

“Easy, witcher. It’s me.”

The wide maw opened to reveal a set of ridiculously large fangs, glistening with saliva and sharp as Ves’s throwing knives.

Roche flattened his back against the wall. “If you’re trying to be funny, you’re about as amusing as a leprous cock.”

He might as well have been jabbering in bloody Elder Speech, for all the reaction it elicited from Geralt. The lack of recognition was mutual.

A ghastly silhouette arose on the wall as the creature stalked toward him in some kind of morbid shadow play. Roche shrank back and stared up into the murderous eyes of his would-be savior. He wondered about the mindset behind that blank stare. Would this beast kill with quick, cold-hearted efficiency? Or did it take pleasure from toying with its prey until the victim begged for death?

A cynical smile tugged at Roche’s mouth as he recalled an old joke between them. “And here I thought we had something special.”

The creature faltered as abruptly as if hit on the nose, claws scraping over the stone floor. Looking down at Roche’s cowed form, a glimmer of recognition sparked in the empty eye sockets at last.

“Sorry,” Geralt grunted in a barely intelligible mockery of his own voice.

“You would’ve been,” Roche muttered, with as much bravado as he could muster in front of a 800-pound killing machine.

But then the witcher padded closer and presented his flank to him in mute peace offering, and Roche relented. He put Geralt’s medallion around his neck to join his own, then put aside his pride and used his companion’s coarse fur to pull himself to his feet – or what was left of them. Within seconds, his skin had broken out in a cold sweat, a pitiful antidote to the dragon’s fire flaring through his limbs. Leaning his weight on Geralt’s sheer bulk, he gladly left it to the witcher to lead the way.

* * *

All things considered, their journey through the Tretogor dungeons could’ve gone a lot worse. For one thing, with a grand total of zero their combined body count was markedly lower than practically any mission involving Roche in full shape and Geralt in human one. Which he supposed spoke volumes about them.

That fact didn’t stop Roche from cursing his decrepit body, cursing the fog in his brain and the black spots plaguing his vision, or cursing the man who had reduced him to this sorry state and the whole ploughing kingdom of Redania with him.

All throughout his bout of self-pity, Geralt was a quiet, stolid presence by his side, slowing down whenever he stumbled and never failing to nudge him back up. The witcher’s potion-enhanced instincts guided them unerringly through the semidarkness, going where his nose led him while steering clear from potential confrontations with almost otherworldly ease.

That is, until in some adjacent corridor a guard dog started barking.

At once, Geralt went rigid as a cocked ballista. He pricked up his ears and bared his fangs at the overt provocation.

“Ah shut it, ya stupid mutt,” a bored voice cut in.

Geralt was already creeping in the direction of the sounds in the manner of an overgrown cat on the hunt. Roche was desperate to stop him, dreaded the fate that awaited them both if he _didn’t_. In the event of discovery, these dungeons amounted to little more than an inescapable death trap. To be sure, Geralt wouldn’t think twice about taking a few unfortunate knights down with him – probably more than a few – but even in this beast-like shape he could not hope to outlast the entire royal guard. And Roche, for his part, had endured enough hardship for the both of them, thanks very much.

The witcher had seemed to respond to his words earlier, so Roche figured he might as well give it another go. “You have a choice, Geralt,” he tried in pleading voice. “The same as I once had: kill a defenseless man or battle yourself.”

He thought back to the siege of Vergen, to their conversation after Henselt of Kaedwen had been at his seething mercy. To this day, Roche maintained that ridding the world of the Last Unicorn would’ve been worth staining his hands with royal blood, but that was neither here nor there.

“You told me I chose the tougher opponent and won,” he recalled aloud. “I like to think you meant it.”

Geralt stood motionless as death, pale face even more inscrutable than usual. For a moment, Roche feared the words had slid off the witcher like reason off a Scoia’tael, but then a low growl rumbled through the thick rib cage and Geralt lowered his hackles once more.

Roche sighed in relief and gave the other man a grateful pat on the head. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

* * *

For a blessed while, the sewers actually felt like a murky reprieve, a pungent island of tranquility amidst the storm. However, as they waded side-by-side through the drab, ankle-deep filth, Geralt kept sniffing and whining and growing more restless by the minute. At one point he dug his heels in and let out a deep growl, every muscle in his body pulling taut as an elven bowstring.

At the same time, the wolf’s head around Roche’s neck started vibrating. For lack of a weapon, he instinctively curled his fingers more tightly in Geralt’s silver fur. Then, peering into the darkness ahead, he saw it too – pair after pair of vacuous, pupil-less eyes, lighting up like treacherous will-o’-the-wisps. Although he was far from an expert, Roche wouldn’t be surprised if they had stumbled upon the drowner farewell committee – in one of two senses of the word.

For the first time that night, Roche felt genuinely glad for the change in his friend. Still using Geralt’s strong flanks for support, he slid down to the moldy floor, gritting his teeth as his whole body screamed in protest. Then he leaned forward to whisper in one twitching, elongated ear.

“All right, you animal, go get them.”

He needn’t say twice.

* * *

They must have looked quite the pair upon their emergence from the sewers, had anyone been around to witness it. A crippled, half-naked prisoner and his giant, freakish pet; its silvery fur glistening in the rain while dark red monster blood dripped down its muzzle and claws.

Breathing in the crisp night air for the first time in gods knew how long, Roche came to a standstill and basked in the raindrops washing the blood off his skin and the rust off his blue-and-silver-plated heart. Fresh blood seeped from a gash in his cheek where a drowner had slashed at his face, only to have its spine snapped clean in half between Geralt’s colossal jaws in the next moment. The witcher had seemed distracted by the fresh scent of human blood, circling Roche with that vacant look in his eye that really jangled Roche’s nerves, until he’d caught sight of that same blood dripping onto his wolf medallion and snapped out of it.

Deciding they had outstayed their welcome, and anxious to avoid an encore of the torture chamber, Roche firmly steered Geralt in the direction of the southern gate, trusting the latter’s instincts to keep them from bumping into late street goers or patrols.

As they neared the gate, he half expected King Radovid himself to block their path – perhaps mounted astride an ivory-colored demon eagle for dramatics – but to his astonishment there wasn’t so much as a guard in sight.

When a saddled and bagged horse awaited them just outside the gate, looking lively and well-groomed and sporting a distinctive rose-shaped brand, Roche was forced to admit he had underestimated the guile of his witcher and this mysterious new Grand Master. Perhaps his time spent among the Blue Stripes had actually taught Geralt something besides lewd marching songs and binge drinking.

Not about to look this gift in the mouth, Roche hoisted himself up in the saddle with the last reserves of his strength. He barely had time to snatch the reins before Geralt sprinted away to the south with large, feline-like bounds. As his feet urged on the horse in pursuit, an excruciating pain shot all the way up to his head, and Roche had to take several deep breaths to quell the wave of nausea. More and more, he began to suspect he would not make it out of here alive, but if he had to die, he was determined that his last breath be of Temerian air.

* * *


	4. IV

They reached Vizima from the north under the brilliant cover of broad fucking daylight. While waiting for nightfall would’ve been the sage thing to do, Geralt knew time wasn’t on their side.

As the royal castle appeared on the horizon, the witcher felt old wounds coming apart at the stitches and bleeding anew. The capital looked as unfamiliar as when he’d ventured here last year in search of the stolen witchers’ secrets as well as his memory. Back when the city had held the heartening promise of answers rather than the fatal surety of them.

A handful of city guards hovered like restless spirits near the northern gate. Some paced aimlessly to and fro while others played cards in a listless, lethargic manner. Like a pack of watch dogs having picked up the scent of a fiercer predator, these men seemed close to choking on the stench of their own impending demise.

Wearing only the pair of braies Siegfried had been provident enough to stow in his saddlebags, and aware of how disreputable he looked – _again_ – Geralt halted his horse and dismounted on bare feet that felt sore as hell. His fingers and toes were raw and bloody, his gums ached, and his head felt fuzzy – residual effects of the Witcher’s Irony, which had worn off not long after crossing the border.

Roche had passed out less than half an hour after.

The agonizing remainder of the route, Geralt had been forced to ride with the other man slung over the horse’s withers with as much care as possible, misgivings eating away at his heart with every bound. Seeing the capital of Temeria in steep decline did little to lift his spirits.

“Hang in there, Vernon,” he said quietly while still out of earshot.

Even as they caught sight of their ragged visitor and his unusual cargo, the guards did little more than acknowledge his arrival with an unenthusiastic nod. As Geralt closed the short distance to the gate, however, two or three men gave a sign of recognition and greeted him with a fond smile.

“Well, I never – witcher Geralt!” one of them proclaimed heartily. “Whoever claimed wolves do not set foot on the field o’ battle afore the fighting’s over?”

“Geralt? Of Rivia?” another guard dropped his cards and jumped to his feet, promptly reaching for his spear. “You’ve got some nerve showing your mug around here. Death to the kingslayer! For Temeria!”

Rather belatedly, Geralt tried to think of a ruse that would explain his presence, but it was hard to navigate the lingering fog in his head. The fewer people knew about Roche’s whereabouts, the better. And if any of these men decided to take a closer look, they would recognize the captain of their special forces in a heartbeat.

“He didn’t murder Foltest, you dunce,” the first guard bit back. “When will you start listenin’ to the town crier instead of dallying with his wife each time he’s busy making an announcement?”

“Oh, is that right? Innocent little bugger, is he?” The bellicose guard stepped forward to size Geralt up, spear pointed at his chest, then raised a sardonic eyebrow at Roche’s unconscious form.

“Friend o’ yours?” he asked dryly. “Another king you failed to protect, mayhaps?”

Geralt curbed the urge to bare his teeth, wishing the sudden flash of ire could be chalked up to the Witcher’s Irony as well, but knowing full well it couldn’t.

“Ah, it’s none of our business, is it?” a scruffy-looking officer cut in, cuffing his unruly subordinate on the helmet. “Pass at will, witcher. Only cargo I’m likely to inspect is an aspiring, er, princess for the Queen of the Night, if you get my drift.” He shook his head with a glum sigh and added, “Which nowadays is not bloody likely.”

The hostile guard scowled but backed down. Geralt sent another glare his way for good measure while inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, even if the guard’s gibe had hit unexpectedly close to home.

Before the witcher could express his gratitude, the officer had sauntered off again, shoulders hunched as he seemed to be gazing up at the battlements surrounding Vizima. Guards were spread just as thin up above, peering off into the distance to the south or ambling about in an antsy, rudderless fashion.

Leading his horse by the bridle, the witcher fell into pace alongside the sullen officer. Walking side-by-side in silence but for the gentle clip-clop of the horse’s hooves, they headed for the city gate together.

“Where the hell is everybody?” Geralt asked eventually.

The officer neither slowed down nor spared him a glance. “Barred up inside, holdin’ their breaths.”

“For what?”

A grave look, accompanied by a defeatist shrug. “Emhyr, Radovid, Henselt… whichever comes first.”

Deeming it wiser not to press, Geralt bade him and his men good luck, then continued on through the gate and into a vision of the past. Making his way through the empty streets, it almost seemed as if the quarantine of Old Vizima had returned and hung like some nameless disease over the rest of the capital. The bustling city life he’d come to know well in over half a year of being stuck at Foltest’s court had given way to a damn ghost town that put Blaviken to shame.

The witcher, unkempt and bloodied and looking a far cry from his exalted literary counterpart, couldn’t help but feel somewhat like a ghost himself. Certainly the few townsfolk he passed on the way scarcely deigned him a glance – let alone recognized him – which allowed him to traverse the Royal Quarter unimpeded and arrive at the Trade Quarter without incident.

He had barely reached Triss’s house and brought his horse to a standstill before the front door swung open and Ves was bounding toward him, wearing a simple chemise over a bandaged shoulder and a drab pair of woolen trousers. Before Geralt had time to utter a word of greeting, she flung herself around his neck and kissed his cheek.

The witcher awkwardly returned the hug, wondering if this was what coming home felt like. “Good to see you too, Ves.”

Ves parted with a smile, until her eyes fell upon the figure draped across the horse. Her attitude darkened as swiftly as Dandelion’s love life.

“He’s alive,” Geralt told her quickly, following her gaze. “That said, it’s not looking good.”

Ves absently stroked the horse’s neck as if to steel her nerves. “Come on, let’s get him inside. We’ve set up a room away from prying eyes.”

With joined efforts, they pulled Roche off and carried him to the front door, where Triss already awaited them with a concerned-looking Dandelion hot on her heels. The sorceress cast one look from Geralt’s scarred torso to Roche’s bloodied one before she stepped aside to let them in, shaking her head and muttering something to Ves about boys being boys.

* * *

Roche was laid in a spare room at the back of the house. Triss unceremoniously shut the door in their faces, saying something about administering magical first aid and running diagnostic spells in relative peace.

Foreseeing a dragging wait, Geralt went outside to take his fatigued horse away to the city stables, feeling he owed it to the poor animal and glad for the distraction from his catastrophic thoughts.

On his way back, the witcher briefly contemplated dropping by Shani’s place to ask her for help. But even if the medic happened to be in town, he doubted her pacifist heart would consent to treating a man like Vernon Roche. Especially in the house of the woman she insisted on calling her romantic rival.

The bedroom door was still closed upon his return, so Geralt took to pacing around the living area, ignoring Ves’s and Dandelion’s half-hearted attempts at conversation. By the lengthening rays of sunset, though, all three of them were sitting together at the dining table in uneasy silence.

Ves could have passed the time with the tale of her long journey from Loc Muinne to the La Valettes, just as she or Dandelion could’ve asked the witcher about his escape from Tretogor, but no one spoke up. Geralt supposed none of it mattered now.

At last the fateful door opened. Three heads shot up expectantly as Triss quietly entered the room, a troubled look on her usually cheerful face. She lingered in the doorway for a moment, wringing a bloodied rag in her hands in apparent irresolution. Then, suddenly mindful of her audience, she seemed to shake herself and beckoned them inside.

Geralt stepped into the room and approached the bed as he would a manticore’s mauled victim. Most of the blood and grime had been cleaned off Roche’s body, granting them an eyeful of the mess underneath. It wasn’t pretty.

Yet it wasn’t Roche’s injuries that got to him most. In all their weeks of being on the road together – however grudgingly at first – Geralt had never seen the man like this. Even in his sleep, Roche never truly seemed to drop his guard, brow and shoulders betraying the perpetual tension of a war veteran. The lifeless person on the bed looked like a poor imitation at best, some aspiring necromancer’s failed experiment.

Geralt unwittingly thought back to the angry city guard’s reproach.

_Another king you failed to protect, mayhaps?_

Had Roche stood vigil over Foltest’s body, as Geralt now stood vigil over his? Had he cursed the witcher’s existence, as Geralt now cursed Radovid’s? Had he stared at the pale face and still hands?

His hands… It was almost impossible to imagine how those fingers had held a quill to write up military reports, how they had wrapped around the hilt of a sword or the throat of an enemy, how their touch had set Geralt’s skin on fire once.

Triss shut the door behind them, breaking the grim silence. “A spell is worth a thousand words.”

She raised her hands in the air and chanted an incantation Geralt had never heard before. At once, all color faded from their surroundings, plunging the room in a bleak grey but for the lava-like glow of four individuals. The Cat potion in spell form, who would have guessed.

Triss’s voice was quiet, almost sad. “Look.”

Following her nod, Geralt turned back to the bed. What should have been a fifth bright, human-shaped glare had dwindled to weakly smoldering embers. A dying fire – literally.

Hope drained from the witcher’s heart and seemed to spill as color back into the room when Triss dispelled the illusion, doing her best to pretend her eyes had not welled up with tears. Even Ves and Dandelion, who were largely unfamiliar with the Cat potion, seemed to understand the implication all too well.

And this time, Geralt had no last wish to magically set things right.

“But… but he’s made it this far,” Dandelion sputtered. “Surely there’s something that can be done – brews, magic, anything!”

Triss shook her head. “He’s just too far gone,” she said, her voice quiet but steady, as if she was hoping to console herself as much as the others. “At this point, a powerful healing spell or potion is more likely to end up killing him.”

Brushing past them without a word, Ves knelt down beside the bed and laid a tentative hand on the slack wrist of her commander and friend.

The two men watched her sadly, while Triss averted her eyes and proceeded to pick up some books on healing magic that lay scattered across the room. She traced listless fingers over one cover, as if desperate for answers that would not be given. “I’m no medic, but anyone can see his body has endured more than a man’s can bear.”

Ves gave no outward reaction, staring fixedly at Roche’s closed eyelids, while Dandelion let out a cry of sympathy.

Meanwhile, Geralt had stopped breathing. His mouth opened soundlessly while his heart was screaming. When words eventually registered in his ears he couldn’t quite believe they had spilled from his own lips.

“A man’s perhaps,” he intoned, a hollow echo of what Roche had said to him in the dungeons of Tretogor. Every syllable seemed to be wrenched from his throat by the wolf’s head that still hung around Roche’s neck, staring back at him with deep red eyes. “But not a witcher’s.”

The three others stared at him blankly. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Ves and Dandelion looked at him as if fearing for his sanity, while a shadow fell across Triss’s face. She clutched her books more tightly, nails digging into their leather-bound covers, while she looked everywhere but at Geralt.

“Triss… could it be done?” Geralt pressed.

“What? Could _what_ be done?” Dandelion whined, looking from witcher to sorceress and back again.

Triss cleverly continued to evade his gaze, but Geralt would have none of it. “Can you turn him into a witcher?”

The silence that fell over the room could have knocked down a draug.

“Oh,” Dandelion stammered, tongue-tied for once in his life. “Oh my.”

Ves sat deadly still near the bed, expression unreadable as she listened to their every word.

Finally, reluctantly, Triss met Geralt’s insistent stare. “There’s the question of whether it can be done, and of whether it ought to,” she said slowly.

“Spare me the lecture on ethics, Triss.”

“The moment we are prepared to cease questioning our morality is the moment the answer matters more than ever.”

Geralt sneered. “Were you as scrupulous when you helped reinstitute the Lodge of Sorceresses behind the rulers’ backs?”

A look of hurt crossed Triss’s face. “No, I wasn’t. None of us were,” she replied with quiet dignity. “And we’ve all seen how that turned out.”

“Yeah,” Geralt readily agreed. “Demavend of Aedirn and Foltest of Temeria end up assassinated, leaving the North an easy prey for the Empire. Foltest’s bastard heir becomes a pawn in a political chess game between Henselt and Radovid, and Vernon Roche ends up yet another casualty in protection of the queen.”

“ _Don’t_ try to provoke me, witcher.” Triss’s green eyes flared. “I’ve already told you, by that point the Lodge had made it abundantly clear that my presence in their meetings was no longer desired. And please don’t stoop to the level of the average nobleman – I’ve sat through enough royal council meetings and put up with enough egotism and name-calling to last me a lifetime.”

Dandelion watched the increasingly venomous discussion with the unhappy look of a child witnessing a fight between its parents.

The slight tremor in Triss’s voice could have been anger or bitterness. To her credit, her face showed neither. “You want to join the common folk and blame me and my fellow mages for everything from regicide and political crises to droughts and curdled milk, go ahead. Gods know some of us are guilty of the former, be it actively or by neglecting to intervene. And you know what tiny pebble set this whole damn avalanche in motion?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” Geralt said dryly.

“Good intentions,” Triss said simply, her eyes flicking over to the bed. “Just listen to yourself, Geralt. _Think_ about what you’re asking.”

She could not have expressed greater contempt if she’d slapped him in the face. The witcher fell silent and glanced helplessly at Dandelion, who avoided his eyes in an unprecedented display of neutrality.

“And if, after due deliberation, you insist on going through with this,” Triss continued after a long pause, “then yes, I believe it can be done.”

Geralt shot her an incredulous look, mirrored tenfold by Dandelion. “You… you do?”

Brow furrowed in concentration, the sorceress moved toward the bed to assess Roche’s condition, faced with an arcane puzzle where others just saw another farewell in the making.

“Lambert and I always suspected you knew more about the witchers’ secrets than you let on,” Geralt prodded, intrigued in spite of himself. “But Eskel said he trusted you to respect our privacy.”

“And I’ve never betrayed that trust,” Triss said sharply, before she bit her lip and amended, “except once. Last year, when the others found you unconscious near Kaer Morhen… what was I to do?” She turned around to give him an earnest look. “For two years I believed you dead – _two years_. And then you miraculously turn up, wounded and impossible to wake, and I didn’t know a damn thing about witchers’ metabolism. I wanted so badly to be of help, I… I cared about you back then.” Her smile was tinged with sadness. “I cared about you so much.”

So that’s how she’d been able to nurse him back to health so quickly. “I know,” Geralt said, wondering if things between them could have turned out differently. Wondering why they hadn’t. “And I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Triss cast her eyes down and gave a dismissive shrug. “It’s a stupid thing to be sorry for.”

“No. It isn’t.”

Triss flashed him a lackluster but grateful smile, then seemed to pull herself together. “Well,” she said with affected briskness, clapping her hands together, “I saved the life of one witcher. I can do it again.”

“Wait.”

All three of them were taken aback when Ves stirred from her sitting position. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise given what she was trained to be and by whom, but Geralt had all but forgotten she was even in the room. “Ves, I’m sorry, should’ve conferred with you first.”

“That’s all right. I think better when others are talking.” Rising to her full height, Ves crossed her arms over her chest and looked between Geralt and Triss. “How will this… change affect him? Physically, mentally?” she asked, in a tone that made it clear she was in no mood for bullshit.

“There’s no way of knowing,” Triss admitted.

“But if we do nothing, he dies,” Geralt added in what had to pass for subtlety.

Ves was silent for a long time, staring into the flickering flame of a bedside candle as she considered their painfully limited range of options.

“One condition,” she spoke up eventually. “Should he wake to a fate worse than death, you will let me end his suffering. No exceptions, no trying to talk me out of it. The call will be mine and mine alone to make.” When she turned round, her stoic blue eyes shone with the glint of hard steel. “Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.”

* * *

The next couple of days would etch themselves into the witcher’s mind as disjointed fragments of a hallucinogenic nightmare. Thinking back to Eskel and Lambert, who he knew retained some memory of their respective Trials, Geralt wondered if the cloying smell of genetic atrophy and forbidden alchemy haunted them as much as he suspected it would him for some time to come.

“The odds of a child surviving the mutations are dreadful enough, never mind an adult,” Triss mused aloud, gesticulating as she paced the floor. “Think of the changes as an invasion, if you will, one a young body may yet endure but a grown one will strive to repel till its very last breath. However, caught in Death’s embrace, our body cedes the fight. He may live precisely because he is dying.”

“Are you sure it will work?”

The bedroom seemed to hold its breath while sorceress and witcher discussed the ritual, as if their exchange held a spell of its own, insidious and all-consuming like a blood curse.

“I was a member of the Lodge until recently, Geralt,” Triss pointed out levelly. “I’ll _make_ it work.”

She turned back to a small cauldron containing – insofar as Geralt had gathered – werewolf blood (courtesy of Triss’s personal laboratory), milk of a pregnant cow (courtesy of one of Dandelion’s paramours in the outskirts), moths and cicadae in various stages of metamorphosis, pomegranate seeds, and other ingredients which all seemed linked to the cycle of life and death.

“Without the original formulae or substances, I do not purport to be capable of fully emulating the Trial of the Grasses,” Triss warned him, reading his face as she diligently stirred the liquid. “While it’s impossible to foresee the full extent of the changes, it’s safe to assume they will be but a shallow approximation. His abilities will likely be limited… but they’ll assure he lives.”

Geralt considered Roche’s still form. The wolf medallion that now hung back around his own neck had yet to stop reacting to the magical energy field maintained by Triss’s spells. He thought back to a conversation he’d had with Eskel on the day he’d woken up with his amnesia. “Did you know the first stage is called the Choice?” he asked softly.

Triss looked up from the acrid fumes rising up from her cauldron. “I forgot,” she admitted with a sour smile. “But hey, they call Philippa Eilhart the jewel in the court at Tretogor. What’s in a name, right?”

They shared a wry look, only to be interrupted by Dandelion and Ves bringing in four steaming bowls of pottage, supplying them all for the long trial ahead.

* * *

The first and only time Roche opened his eyes, Geralt wished he hadn’t.

With the transformation in full progress, the blood vessels in Roche’s pupils had burst, leaving the whites of his eyes barely visible in a nightmarish image. They all stared in horror while Dandelion recoiled with an unmanly shriek that Geralt didn’t hold against him one bit.

The witcher recovered from the initial shock when Roche tried to sit up, straining against Triss’s magical bonds. “Easy, Vernon,” he said, doing his utmost to keep the unease out of his voice. “Save your strength instead of fighting it.”

“I’ll die however I damn well please,” Roche snarled weakly, blood seeping from his eyes and mouth as he coughed violently. “Think you’re an expert just because you’ve done it once before?”

“You’re not dying,” Geralt countered quietly, sharing a dour look with Ves, who stepped in with a damp cloth to wipe the blood off her commander’s chin. “If anything, you’re being reborn.”

“Reb– _argh_.” Roche gritted his teeth and arched his back in visible throes of agony. On the other end of the room, Triss looked up from her preparations with a look of pained guilt.

Roche lay back, panting, and visibly struggled to keep his eyes open as he turned toward his protégée. “Ves… what the ploughing hell is he rambling about?”

They winced as more blood began to trickle from his nostrils and ears and – if Triss was to be believed – all other orifices. Ves grimaced, but did not avert her eyes. “Let’s just say I _would_ consider him an expert on the matter,” she said with a nod at Geralt.

By the time she finished speaking, Roche had sunk back into unconsciousness. Somehow, that made it easier.

In the hours that followed, Geralt more than once caught himself laying a soothing hand to the clammy surface of Roche’s forehead. After a while, he no longer even bothered to cast Axii – the simple touch of his hand seemed sufficient to calm the worst of Roche’s fever dreams.

He cared less than he should have whether Triss could tell.

* * *

_Leo. Berengar. Foltest’s nameless attacker. Auckes. Serrit. Letho._

Since coming back from the dead, he’d seen too many other witchers die – half of whom by his own hand and all of whom, one way or another, he’d had some hand in killing or failing to save.

One would think creating a new member, taking the witcher caste one measly step back from total extinction, would feel like an act of redemption.

It didn’t.

As he sat outside, Geralt stretched out until his joints protested. He felt as empty as the potion bottles littering that cursed room, as foul as the noxious fumes wafting up from their popped corks. Earlier that morning, the stark reality of Roche’s drug-induced delirium had caused the witcher to snap at Dandelion, snidely asking him how he liked the fresh material for his ballads. He’d slammed the door in the poet’s face without waiting for a reply, retreating to the backyard before his temper could _really_ get the better of him.

Geralt glanced up as a patrol of city guards marched past Triss’s house, blissfully unaware of the horror taking place within its walls. The early signs of a waking Vizima reached the witcher’s ears, a pale shadow of the hustle and bustle he’d gotten to know quite well over the greater part of a year. The once-glorious capital of Temeria felt on the brink of death, living on borrowed time ever since the loss of its king.

His stream of thoughts was dammed up when an unusually meek Dandelion came to retrieve him in the garden. “Triss says she requires your assistance with the next stage.”

Geralt didn’t move a muscle. “Be there in a minute.”

A good distance away, Dandelion lingered in apparent indecision. “Geralt… I would be infinitely obliged if you allowed me to apologize for my unfortunate choice of words back in Oxenfurt. In current light, they seem in bad taste indeed. But I could not know at the time what–”

“No,” Geralt cut in without anger, without emotion. “That’s your problem, Dandelion – you _never_ know. Until it’s too late and you need me to pull you out of the fire or the claws of wedlock again.”

Not for the first time in recent days, Dandelion had the decency to hold his tongue.

Geralt opened his mouth, only to find he had forgotten what he’d been about to reproach his friend. He rubbed his hands down his face and groaned. “Shit, Dandelion, what the hell are we doing?”

The poet did not answer. Not that Geralt had expected him to.

The witcher leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “We were quick to condemn Jacques de Aldersberg and his army of mutants, but how is our course of action any different?” he went on, feeling miserable. “How are our motives superior to the Lodge’s? We all prefer to think of ourselves as noble saviors; each respective vision to save humanity even grander, more megalomaniac than the last.”

With a graceful move, Dandelion sat down beside him on the garden bench. “You share the same penchant for dramatism, that’s for sure.”

Geralt shot him a look, and the bard held up his hands in a placating gesture.

“Perhaps the sole difference is that unlike Jacques de Aldersberg, unlike Philippa Eilhart, you’ve paused to ask yourself that question. Even if you have little hope for a definitive answer – not from me, not from some senile lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, not from anyone except maybe Roche himself.”

“What if I don’t like his answer?” Geralt asked in a low voice.

“You’ll find a way to live with it, I’m sure.” Dandelion laid a compassionate hand on his arm. “And thanks to you, so will he.”

* * *

The two men reentered the house to find Triss alone in the living area. She appeared to be adding the finishing touches to the cauldron, which had hung bubbling in the fireplace for the better part of a day. Its heady fumes went straight to Geralt’s head.

Triss straightened up and brushed a stray lock of hair off her forehead. The lines around her eyes and mouth gave her an older, almost ancient appearance. Instead of accentuating her natural radiance, the firelight dancing across her features served as an unnerving reminder of the raw power harbored by this woman.

“It’s time for the final ingredient to be added,” she announced in a business-like tone, as if she was doing no more than conducting a perfectly innocuous experiment at some academy of magic. She nodded solemnly at Geralt. “The blood of a witcher.”

Without waiting for a reaction, she turned her head and called out, “Ves!”

After an expectant pause, the door to the bedroom opened and Ves emerged. With her, she carried a special forces dagger identical to the one Geralt was intimately familiar with. The witcher looked on warily as she dutifully presented the dagger to Triss, while Dandelion was doing his best to pretend he wasn’t there.

“Fear not, I need only a few drops,” Triss reassured them, beckoning Geralt toward the fireplace. “Your mutated blood cells will divide and multiply on their own, corrupting the brew like an infectious disease.”

“That makes me feel much better, thanks.”

Unsmiling, she instructed Geralt to hold his hand palm up over the cauldron, then lightly nicked his thumb with the sharp blade. Three drops fell down and mingled with the bubbling contents in a sluggish, decidedly unnatural fashion before the cut closed up again. The surface of the liquid looked perfectly unchanged, but his medallion would not be fooled and started vibrating anew.

“That is all,” Triss said with a final glance at the brew. “Everything’s set for the last stage.”

Geralt frowned at the grimness in her tone. “What happens when he drinks it, exactly?” he asked.

There was a beat of silence as the two women exchanged a furtive look. “Ves and I have got this,” Triss said evasively, holding her head high but avoiding his eyes. “You don’t have to witness what follows.”

“Like hell I won’t,” Geralt said with a snarl.

The sorceress brushed past him, visibly scrambling for the right words. For some reason, she had yet to lay Ves’s dagger aside. Geralt eyed her suspiciously, not very fond of this sudden secrecy.

“Without the Grasses, we need another means of tapping into the deepest core of his being,” Triss allowed at last, still frustratingly vague. “My spells and potions can guide him through the changes, but they cannot instigate them. The actual awakening has to come from within.”

“Within?” Geralt echoed, hoping against hope that his premonition was wrong. Unfortunately, it seldom was, and never when he wanted it to be.

Triss gave a resigned nod while her thumb traced the flat side of the blade. “His heart.”

Aside from a wince, Ves gave no outward reaction. Geralt, on the other hand, felt his heart clench as if stabbed by the blade itself. “… The Grasses destroy our hearts?” he asked weakly.

“Without a focal point, the Grasses destroy _you_ , period. It requires a powerful conduit to harness such deep-rooted physiological and neurological changes.”

Geralt’s hand unwittingly sought out his own chest to feel the slow heartbeat, wondering what part of it – if any – predated his life as a witcher. “Eskel never mentioned that bit.”

“Nowadays, only one witcher is privy to that truth,” Triss admitted. “And he is adamant it be kept that way.”

“Let me guess – Vesemir?” Geralt sneered. When Triss did not deny it, he couldn’t keep the spite out of his tone. “For a man who used to give us hell for our ignorance of some bestiary footnote or optional potion ingredient, Vesemir sure went out of his way to keep us in the dark about the essentials.”

“And why do you think that is?” Triss asked. “What good would it do to burden young witchers with such an awful truth, except give them one more reason to feel different, one more excuse for their reclusion?”

“You think he did right in keeping this from us?” Geralt asked in a dangerous tone.

“I think it’s not my place to agree or disagree with Vesemir’s teachings,” Triss said carefully, always the diplomat. “And I think this is neither the time nor place for a lecture on ethics,” she added pointedly, eyes daring him to contend otherwise.

“Hear hear,” Ves chimed in, softly but with an air of finality. She stepped forward to take the dagger from Triss and held it over the bubbling mixture with a steady hand. “Let’s get this over with. As the lads liked to say: embrace the suck.”

* * *

After three nightmarish days and sleepless nights, there was naught more to be done but wait. With the exception of Triss, they all filed out of that loathful room into the living area, and sat their weary bones and heavy hearts down in front of the fireplace.

Ves, taciturn as ever but uncharacteristically withdrawn, seemed lost in a world of her own, her proud shoulders slumped and her normally fierce eyes dull and distant. Geralt wanted to assure her that things would be all right, but he lacked the will to lie.

According to Triss, Roche had made it past the critical period, and Geralt had noted the first signs that the man’s physical injuries were beginning to heal – at an inhumanly fast rate. Gone were the sickly pallor and lingering smell of death, his fever had abated, and his respiration had slowed to a calm and steady rhythm. But all this left the burning question of when he would awaken – and how.

After an exhausted-looking Triss had emerged from the room only to shuffle upstairs to her bedroom, the three of them were left sitting together by the hearth. At one point, Dandelion strummed his lute and began to sing in soft, dulcet tones. After a while, Ves joined in.

_That’s the way it must be, please don’t shed,  
Those diamonds that run down your cheeks._

Feeling restless, Geralt jumped to his feet. He gave the pair a curt nod and went off to fetch his scabbards, fervently hoping the Vizima cemetery was still infested with necrophages.

* * *

It was the hour before dawn by the time Geralt returned home, dead on his feet but feeling better than he had in a long time, to find a note in familiar, flourished handwriting on the table.

_Walls were closing in, off to The New Narakort. Don’t wait up. And stop fretting.  
–Dandelion_

With a roll of his eyes, the witcher proceeded to pull off his blood-spattered gloves and shrug off his jacket covered in bits of ghoul. Triss might still be wrapped up in the safe arms of the torpor that followed profuse magical exertion, but Geralt was unwilling to risk her ire by dripping monster innards all over the place.

As soon as he’d made himself halfway presentable again, Geralt checked inside the spare room to find Ves asleep at her post by her commander’s bedside, and said commander nowhere to be found.

For one heart-stopping moment, Geralt stood and stared at the empty bed. Then he let out a calming breath, closed his eyes, and called upon his other senses. On good days Roche tended to smell of war and rage, on bad days he hardly had a scent at all. That same old signature hung in the air now, but stronger, undiluted – not unlike a forest purified after a heavy rain.

The witcher retraced his steps and followed his nose to the front door. He opened it and wavered in the doorway, torn between going after Roche and allowing the man some space. Under reversed circumstances, he knew _he’d_ want to be left alone. He also knew Roche wouldn’t give a damn.

Had they been in one of Dandelion’s ballads, the night would’ve been clear and full of stars, with a full moon bathing the streets below in delicate tones of silver. Instead, it was cold and grey and cloudy, with no moon to be seen, and a slight drizzle that had already soaked him to the bone and held no promise of stopping anytime soon. A faint smell of manure wafted in from the outskirts and, damn it, Geralt just wanted to stay inside and drown himself in strong ale instead of rainwater.

With a sigh, he returned to the bedroom and gently shook Ves awake, loath to disturb her hard-won moment of peace but knowing she was going to beat herself up about Roche’s disappearance the moment she opened her eyes.

“I’ll get him back,” he reassured her, nipping her frantic worrying in the bud. “Stay here in case Triss comes down or Dandelion gets himself arrested on charges of public indecency.”

After Ves’s reluctant promise to stay put, Geralt pulled on his jacket before stepping outside. He perked his nostrils and stuck to familiar back alleys as Roche’s scent trail led him all the way to the Royal Quarter.

* * *


	5. V

The Royal Palace, seat of power of Temeria ever since the old manor had become the personal hunting grounds of Her Highness the striga. Once, the mere sight of its towers in the distance had filled his heart with reverence and pride; now it was just another silent reminder of what had been lost. The sunrise on the horizon would commence its deadly march upon the night soon, rays of blazing gold encroaching on dotted troops of silver stars. A foregone battle.

And fuck, he’d been through hell and back, he was entitled to a little melodrama.

Huddled in the shadow of his kingdom’s fading glory, Roche closed his eyes and focused on the simple sensation of raindrops soothing his raw nerves. The constant drizzle bordered on painful, but it was a welcome distraction from the invisible parasite eating away at his insides.

Perchance a more poetically-inclined individual would’ve appreciated the irony of a soldier’s fall from grace alongside his country’s, of going down with one’s king and capital, of withering away much like the lilies on the castle’s banners as the epitome of patriotism.

Personally, he thought it a pretty shitty reward for years of loyal service.

With a pained shudder, Roche braced himself against a building. The stone surface felt cool against his forehead as he retched up a worrisome mixture of bile and blood, at the mercy of an unknown, brutal torture that left him trapped inside his own skin, executioner and victim all at once. His teeth chattered as if kissed by the prophetic White Frost, whilst his treacherous heart seemed to be burning up with the heat of a blackened Nilfgaardian sun.

His chest sure _looked_ the part.

And gods, then there was his face. Twin suns stared back at him from a puddle of rain at his feet, burning bright like an omen heralding the Empire’s eventual victory, or cruelly insinuating that the North had already lost.

As much as he hated himself for thinking such treason, part of him was glad Foltest was not there to see it.

A sudden whiff of blood and putrefaction caused him to retch again; elusive, inexplicable flashes of a cemetery and decomposing corpses intruded upon his frazzled mind. He sensed rather than heard footsteps approaching through the muck, too quick and nimble to be human, and stiffened.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he rasped, inwardly cursing his raw throat.

The footsteps stopped dead in their tracks. “Glad to hear your core personality hasn’t suffered.”

That voice – calm, sensible, insupportable. Hateful words prowled in his mouth, and it took every ounce of self-restraint Roche possessed not to set them free.

In response to his dogged silence, the other person pressed, “We’re both here now, might as well talk about it.”

“Go plough yourself, witch–” Too late, he bit the word back. Shit, it would take time to get that moniker off his lips.

A wounded lull in the conversation followed, which suited Roche just fine.

“‘Indeed, naught is more repulsive than these monsters that defy nature and are known by the name of witcher, as they are the offspring of foul sorcery and witchcraft.’” The words rolled easily off Geralt’s tongue, seemingly ingrained in his head like an old scar that acts up when the weather turns sour. “’Unscrupulous scoundrels without conscience and virtue, they are veritable creatures from hell, capable only of taking lives. They have no place amongst decent and honest folk.’”

“You don’t believe that,” Roche shot back. It was not a question.

“Do you?” came the quiet retort.

Roche gave no reply as he pondered the quotation, the many spiteful things he could say about it. Only when his body no longer felt on the verge of puking its own guts out did he dare straighten up, keeping a steadying hand on the wall just in case.

“What _is_ your place in this world, Geralt?” he asked in a rough voice, suddenly feeling very tired.

“Ask me again when I’m not dead on my feet and smelling of ghoul entrails,” came the dry suggestion.

Roche said nothing. Behind him, footsteps padded closer with the caution of a lost traveler on the edge of Brokilon forest. Witcher turned prey, there was a sight you didn’t see every day.

“I know you don’t wanna hear this right now, but you shouldn’t be out here,” Geralt went on, dead serious again. “Guards might spot you.”

“Guards wouldn’t care if a kayran appeared at the dike to gang-rape the loopholes in the city walls,” Roche countered dully. He spat on the ground before pushing himself off the wall. “Not with the Nilfgaardian plague choking our lands once more.”

Every word, every step seemed to drain the energy out of him. Roche sunk down on a low wall overlooking the palace in the hope of catching his breath. The sudden sheen of cold sweat on his upper body was washed off by the rain with nary a trace like his efforts meant nothing.

A presence lurked somewhere close behind him, a sensation as palpable as a lodged arrow and as impossible to ignore. “Dawn will break anew for Temeria,” Geralt said softly. “In no small part thanks to you.”

The veneer of patriotism didn’t suit him, but Roche appreciated the effort, however awkward. Resisting the vague urge to hug himself, he muttered, “Even so, this night may last over a decade.”

“Well, at least you’re able to see in the dark now.”

“ _Don’t_ push it, witcher,” he growled with a glare over his shoulder.

That damned moniker again, even though it was no longer a point of differentiation between them. Well, Roche decided, it couldn’t be helped.

“Regarding your earlier question,” Geralt ventured after a pause, stepping into his field of vision, “a rather… colorful figure once told me that at the end of every path there is a goal, a purpose. It’s just a matter of what we choose to devote ourselves to.”

“That figure see fit to tell you what lies beyond that path?”

“Well, he didn’t say anything about a damn suicide mission,” Geralt said through gritted teeth. “And don’t give me any of that ‘lesser evil’ bullshit.”

“How about a necessary evil, then?” Roche bit back. “My life for Temeria’s. And before you ask: yes, that deal was mine to seal, I was not about to delegate it.” His jaw was set when he added, “Not again.”

“There are less convoluted ways to get yourself killed.”

“I don’t expect a nonpartisan witcher to understand, but this isn’t about me,” Roche said flatly. “It never was.”

Geralt let out a pained growl. “Dammit Roche, if you’d just _told_ me at the time–”

“Had I told you, one more man would’ve ended up hanged because of my actions,” Roche cut him off. “Naught more.”

“At least the choice would’ve been mine.”

“You’re crying over spilt milk again.”

“I’m crying over spilt _blood_.”

Roche hung his head and rubbed at his temple. “You and me both, witcher.”

The silence that fell between them felt cold and hollow. Geralt just stood there, frustration and anger radiating off him in waves yet seemingly at a loss as to what to do with a foe that neither fought back nor made a run for it.

They had that much in common, at least.

Roche warred with himself in the silence that followed, eyes never straying from the palace even though he could feel the other man’s stare boring into him. Both of them knew, rationally, that Geralt had lost the right to be let in on Roche’s plans the moment their alliance had ended – hell, Roche was unsure where he’d earned that right to begin with.

So why the fuck was he going out of his way to defend his actions?

“For what it’s worth, I did tell you,” he divulged at last. “You didn’t catch it at the time – nor were you supposed to – and it changes nothing, but… I told you the true reason for my visit that evening.”

It was the closest either of them had come to mentioning that night, what had happened between them. He was under no illusion that Geralt had paid much attention to his own question or Roche’s reply to it – not with the physical sensations that had accompanied both – but Roche had been very genuine in that moment. And in every moment that had followed.

“You wanted a proper goodbye,” came Geralt’s level reply.

Roche allowed a wry smile. “Didn’t think you’d been paying attention. But yes, I did.” He left the heart of his statement unspoken.

_Just this once._

Geralt, who was almost as good at reading his body language as he was at ignoring it, sat down beside him with a sigh. In truth, Roche had been prepared to take the blame; had in fact been looking forward to a verbal or even a physical outlet for his own demons. But Geralt didn’t seem angry, just lost.

It didn’t become him.

“I’ve not set foot in the capital since Foltest’s death,” Roche confided after a long silence, looking down as he clasped his hands in his lap. “Feels as though I’ve aged a decade.”

Geralt tilted his head back and welcomed the rain with a shake of his hair. “Likewise.”

“What the fuck would you know about it?” He could not help it, his temper was flammable as sulphur right then. “What does a lone wolf know of losing all that was ever dear to him? My king and country, my men, and now my bloody humanity. Feels like…” his voice cracked as fierce spikes of agony shot through his insides once again.

“Like outliving your own death?” Geralt finished for him. There was hurt in his tone, but he seemed too tired to fight anger with anger. “You’re right, couldn’t possibly know what that feels like.”

Touché. But Roche kept the thought to himself, loath to admit defeat.

“You’re not the only one who’s loved and lost, who’s seeking to reconcile past with present,” Geralt went on in a maddeningly disarming tone.

Roche snorted, unimpressed. “That’s markedly easier to do when you have no past.”

“Yeah,” Geralt agreed. “It was.”

Roche glanced sideways at the other man, letting those three simple words sink in. That would explain Geralt’s reminiscences about some old friend just then, he realized belatedly. “You finally remember, then.”

“Every last bit of it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Geralt let out a short, surprised laugh, then fell silent once more. “You and me both, witcher.”

Roche grimaced, but let the appellation sink in. He turned it over in his mind, found that maybe he could get used to it. Certainly he’d been called worse in his life.

Beside him, Geralt fidgeted, a subtle restlessness easily missed by someone who did not know him well. Roche held still and waited, sensing the other was on the verge of saying more.

“The saying goes ‘regaining’ one’s memory, but it’s more of a loss, isn’t it?” Geralt mused aloud, frowning down at his feet. Roche had the impression he was speaking straight from the heart, giving voice to things too long left unsaid. “Just another wandering ghost, insubstantial yet forever tormenting its loved ones with what once was but is no more.”

“I should think you’ve experience aplenty in dealing with ghosts.”

Geralt gave a brief shake of his head, causing a raindrop to drip off his nose. “All I know is how to set them free, how to release their grip on the living. Not even a witcher can bring back what’s dead and gone.”

“Then why do you keep trying?” Roche asked before he could stop himself.

Geralt shot him a look. “You tell me.”

Roche was not fazed, meeting amber with amber. The silent threat was even less effective now than it had been four months ago in the interrogation cell of La Valette Castle.

Contemplating the strange anomaly that was the White Wolf, he stated bluntly, “You care too much about death.”

“You care too little about life,” came the equally gruff retort.

For the first time in far too long – no matter how much he tried to suppress it – Roche felt a genuine smile tug at the corners of his mouth. Perceptive as always, Geralt’s eyes lit up in pleasant surprise.

A raucous band of youngsters chose that precise moment to loudly regale the early morning with their presence, singing and hooting and staggering along further down the street.

Roche’s muscles tightened involuntarily. A cacophony of treads and voices besieged his senses, and he could smell the cheap booze on their breaths a mile off. Keeping to the shadows, he and Geralt waited for their drunken arses to saunter past, and heaved a simultaneous sigh when the footsteps halted right behind them.

He could have guessed the obligatory witticisms even before the lead lad delivered them with all the overconfidence of youth.

“Oi, what’s this then, eh? Countin’ your gambling winnings, or a hard night’s work from the lasses? Spare some cutter for the poor ‘n’ parched, gents?” The tones of laughter darkened as the footsteps drew nearer. “Or maybe we should just ‘ave ourselves a wee bit o’ free entertainment, light up these gloomy times?”

One dead glare on their part was all it took for the whole gang to turn pale as a corpse and scamper off for their mothers, crying about evil bogeymen.

Roche stared after the poor sods with a rather sick sense of gratification. “Fuck, I needed that.”

Trying – and failing – to hide a grin of his own, Geralt got to his feet. “What _I_ need is to get out of this damned rain,” he said, taking one or two steps before looking back. “You coming?”

Roche gave it some brief thought, then shook his head. “Think I’ll stay here for a little while longer. You go on ahead, I’ll meet you in a bit.”

“For real this time?” Geralt asked in a strange tone that suddenly made Roche envisage the possibility that he had not been the only one to suffer in recent days.

“Where the fuck else would you have me go?” Roche retorted, but he mellowed when it became clear Geralt wouldn’t. “I spent this past half year traipsing all across the North to try and forget there was no home for me to return to,” he amended quietly. “I’m done running, Geralt.”

That answer seemed to satisfy the witcher, but still he stood there, wavering, as if he’d been debating a matter with himself for quite a while and had just now made up his mind. “There’s… something I think you should have. It’s not much, but…” Geralt trailed off, then reached inside his collar and took something off his neck, letting it dangle by its chain for Roche to see.

A pang of deep, visceral hurt pierced Roche’s heart, as if to cruelly remind its owner it was still there. “If you’re trying to mock me, it’s working,” he muttered, staring at the ground.

“Triss put an enchantment on it so it’ll give off a warning near magic or danger,” Geralt explained, not a hint of mockery in his tone. “I’ve tried it out, it’s operational. It’s a witcher’s medallion now.”

“That’s rich.” Roche barked a bitter laugh, his stomach clenching in a way that had little to do with his changed physiology. “A witcher donning the Temerian insignia.”

“Trust me, folk will be suspicious of those lilies about as much as Iorveth’s emblems fool them into thinking he is supreme commander of all the North’s special forces.”

Roche swallowed thickly. “The symbol’s meaningless now, anyway,” he said, his recalcitrant heart bespeaking the exact opposite. “My days of service to Temeria are over.”

“Right. We’re only on the brink of the Third War with Nilfgaard, what could we possibly need a civilian spy for?”

Roche glowered at him. “I am _not_ a civilian.” Then, with reluctance, “I’ve just gone AWOL… indefinitely.”

“Exactly.” Geralt’s face was impassive as ever, but there was a glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I’m sure men like Thaler would see merit in an itinerant monster slayer whose loyalty is beyond question.”

“Men like Thaler see merit mostly at the bottom of a two-pint tankard,” Roche scoffed, knowing full well he wasn’t fooling either of them.

At Geralt’s expectant silence, however, he hesitantly reached out a hand and took the cherished medallion from him. The pendant now hung on a new chain – thinner, less cumbersome, easily hidden in the folds of one’s clothing. While the rain had rinsed off most of the blood, some of it had seeped deep into the metal grooves.

Tainted to the core, just like the rest of him. For some reason, Roche drew comfort from that fact.

“An undercover assignment of indefinite duration in the filthy nether regions of this world,” he mused aloud, tracing a thumb over the trio of lilies and hating how sincere he sounded. “And here I was hoping I _wouldn’t_ end up like old Ducat.”

“It’s been called the most evil of evils, hope,” Geralt said, strangely quiet. “There are those who say one’s better off without it.”

“Something may be said for that,” Roche mumbled to himself.

Geralt shifted his weight from one foot to the other and glanced at him with an insecure air. “If you wanna talk… you know, try and ease your burden...”

Roche looked him square in the eye, silently telling him to back off. “My burden’s fine just the way it is.”

Taking the cue in stride, Geralt gave a nod and left him to his own devices without another word. As his footsteps faded away, Roche curled his fingers tightly around the medallion. In that moment, for the first time, he figured that perhaps he’d find a way out of this mess.

Perhaps they both would.

* * *


	6. VI

Back home, Geralt found Ves in front of the hearth, all but pacing a hole in the rug, her already gaunt features riddled with worry and guilt. As soon as the door creaked open, she spun around and hurried up to him, anxious for the full report.

“The good news, he’s lucid,” Geralt informed her, shaking raindrops out of his hair. “Which also constitutes the bad news.”

A pained look crossed her face. “How is he taking it?”

Geralt sat down and pried off his sodden boots. “Better than I would have,” he said after some deliberation, “though that’s not saying much.”

He had barely finished speaking before the young woman was striding past him, heading for the door with a look of grim determination on her face.

“Ves…” Geralt laid a hand on her arm and shook his head.

“Fuck!” Without warning, she slammed a fist on the nearest available surface and let out a frustrated sound. The sudden resemblance was almost uncanny. “There’s got to be _something_ we can do!”

“Give him time,” Geralt suggested as calmly as he could muster. “Allow him the dignity to deal with this in his own way.”

Slowly, loudly, Ves released a deep breath, looking shamed by her outburst. Although it was evident she didn’t like it, she stepped away from the door all the same and promptly resumed her pacing.

Leaving her to it, Geralt slipped off his jacket. Although he could feel the weeks’ strains catching up with him, he urged his weary bones to ascend the stairs in order to check in on Triss.

As before, the sorceress was confined to bed, caught in a near-comatose slumber and beyond waking. Yet her breathing was slow and even, and barring the unhealthy pallor of her face, she looked decidedly more at peace than she had in recent days. All the same, the whole ritual had clearly taken its toll on her, and Geralt loved her all the more for what she had done, knew in big part she had done it for him.

He stood near Triss’s four-poster bed and listened to her gentle heartbeat, then sat down on the edge of the mattress. So much had changed since the last time he had set foot in this bedroom. People had killed and been killed, treaties had been broken, old feuds had been rekindled, old wars had been dusted off as good as new.

So really, nothing much had changed. Except, of course, the one ugly thing that had.

“Just wanted to let you know he’s awake and well,” he spoke up quietly, “or as well as can be expected.”

No reaction. The rain outside intensified, pattering loudly against the window panes. Thick grey clouds prevented the early daylight from filtering in, leaving the smoldering hearth fire as the bedroom’s main source of light and warmth.

The witcher glanced at the stairs to make sure they were alone before continuing, “He would’ve lost his life if not for you, Triss. And I would’ve lost him.”

He let the words linger, hated how they made him feel, hated _that_ they made him feel.

The prolonged silence on Triss’s end was unnerving, almost accusatory. With her hair let down and draped across her face and the pillow in unruly strands, it was painfully easy to remember her sound asleep in an army tent following activities of a far more pleasurable kind.

Geralt looked down at his feet, to no avail. It felt as if he were the one being watched. “The last conversation I had with Foltest on the day of his death was about you,” he divulged after another long silence. “About the two of us – leaving, as you’d been dreaming of doing.”

He knew he was being a coward for broaching the subject while she was asleep, but he didn’t think he’d be able to broach it at all otherwise. There was this vague feeling of guilt that had been weighing on him ever since his talk with Letho, since recovering his memory, since…

 _Since what, exactly? Since_ whom _?_

Realizing he was fiddling, Geralt folded his hands in his lap. It did little to assuage his inner unrest. “He gave us his blessing right then and there, as he and I were climbing the staircase to the solar together. For just one moment, I could call myself a free man again. Then we reached the top and…”

He didn’t finish that sentence. He didn’t have to.

“I guess you and I missed our chance; nothing more, nothing less. But…” Geralt glanced at her freckled face and weighed his words, weighed his thoughts. “I _would_ have, Triss. I wanted you to know that.”

_Did you, really? Then why tell her when she’s in no capacity to hear?_

_Oh, shut up._

Geralt got to his feet rather abruptly, telling himself it was improper to spy on a woman in her sleep. Knowing full well he was not acting out of courtesy, he crossed the bedroom floor and went back downstairs.

By the time he reentered the living area, Ves had retreated to the cot which she’d set up right outside Roche’s room and which had gone completely ignored up till then. She sat stiffly on the hard surface, one leg bobbing up and down in agitation, her eyes reddened from more than lack of sleep. As he got to the bottom of the stairs, Geralt caught her quickly wiping a stray tear off her cheek.

“It’s out of our hands now, Ves,” he said, wishing he had the words to comfort her. “The rest is down to him.”

She shot him an unconvincing smile, which he supposed was better than nothing. In dire need of a modicum of solitude, Geralt made for what had become Roche’s room, sidestepping Ves with the excuse that he needed to meditate – which in his case was just a fancy term for brooding.

* * *

As he lay in the dark with his arms folded behind his head, Geralt listened to the rain pelting against the roof one floor up, too exhausted to sleep. Thoughts swarmed inside his skull like a flock of celaeno harpies intent on stealing his dreams. Like a bound djinn running rampant in a defenseless city, or a fierce black and violet storm that smelled of lilies and gooseberries. Like–

Lilac.

Lilac, not lilies.

_Fuck._

Geralt groaned and resisted the urge to dig the heels of his palms into his eyelids, no longer sure whether he was trying to cradle or quell the memories. Unsure what had made him refer to his past as a ghost that haunted him, or if he’d ever be able to think of it any other way from now on.

To think of _her_ any other way.

The witcher rolled onto his side, bracing himself for the customary sting of grief that tended to accompany this line of thought, and not as surprised as he should have been when it didn’t. He decided to chalk it up to physical and mental fatigue, mostly because he didn’t think he could deal with the alternative right then.

It was a relief when sleep began to tug at him and the harpies of his mind fell quiet.

* * *

He was unsure how much time had passed when a cold whisper chilled his mind, elusive yet vaguely unpleasant like passing through a nightwraith, alerting him to an unknown presence drawing near. He awoke from his half slumber and willed his eyelids open just in time to see Roche’s bedraggled form slipping into the room.

Geralt blinked the sleep out of his eyes but didn’t bother to sit up, allowing himself the far-too-rare luxury of not starting into waking like a wild animal. “The witcher code doesn’t forbid knocking, you know.”

Roche seemed not in the least bit startled by his presence. “Your code, not mine,” came the terse reply. Amber eyes bored into Geralt’s, beastlike and beyond recognition. A shiver of unease crept down the witcher’s spine when he realized that, like him, this man would no longer be fooled by darkness or closed doors. “Also, I didn’t want to wake Ves.”

Geralt propped himself up on his elbows. He frowned when Roche silently closed the door behind him and locked it with undue care, as if striving to effectively blot out the world.

“Didn’t think she’d fall back asleep, or planned on sleeping ever again for that matter. After you stole past her…” he trailed off, noticing the commander’s hands were shaking slightly. “She wanted to be there for you when you woke up… if you woke up.”

“She was,” Roche said in a rough voice, leaning against the door in a casual but unmistakable attempt to steady himself. “Her presence was the sole thing that kept me from freaking out altogether, even if she looked like shit.” He gave Geralt the once-over. “In fact, you do as well.”

“Yeah well, you should see the other guy,” Geralt shot back, looking at him pointedly.

Roche scowled. “Very funny.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“Isn’t it?” Roche asked in a faraway voice. “Just what is it, then?”

Without waiting for a reply, he crossed the room – not quite succeeding in hiding a limp – and sank down into the chair beside the bed, which allowed a proper look at him. Geralt fought back a grimace. Unruly black veins sprouted forth like dead tree roots from Roche’s damaged heart and the healed gash on the left side of his face, branching all the way up from his chin to his eyebrow. The pattern, thorny and irregular, reminded Geralt of a drunken mimicry of the elegant swirls of Iorveth’s forest tattoo.

_Remind me to tell him that if I ever feel like dying a slow and painful death._

Oblivious to his stare – or simply beyond caring – Roche curled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his legs and burying his face against his knees. The man looked overwrought and dead tired, despite the fact that he’d just slept for three days on end.

“How’re you feeling?”

“As if I’m stuck in a fisstech-induced psychosis,” Roche informed him bluntly without looking up. “Sensory deprivation is one thing, but a barrage such as this… how do you bear it?”

Geralt said nothing and let him vent, suspecting Roche was not looking for an easy fix – not that he had one. He hadn’t forgotten how overwhelming Kaer Morhen had been in the wake of his amnesia. Thanks to muscle memory his body had quickly readapted to its mutations, but those first few hours had been gruelling. And that likely paled in comparison to the plight Roche must be going through at present.

“When I came to, I couldn’t fathom what was wrong with me… till I chanced upon a mirror,” Roche went on, his tone slightly milder. “Not sure what was worse: the fear of having lost my mind, or the realization that I hadn’t.”

Geralt had the decency to feel guilty. Averting his gaze, his eye fell on the Temerian medallion hanging safely and securely around Roche’s neck. He was unsure whether it made him feel better or worse.

In a bout of restlessness, Roche dragged his limbs out of the chair and manoeuvred his way around the semidark room like it was nothing. Earlier, Geralt had opened the shutters in an attempt to dispel the tang of blood and magic from the room, and Roche now braced his arms on the window sill to stare out through the pouring rain at his city, his past, his loss.

“It’s fitting, in a fucked-up way. You’ve condemned me to live… as I’ve condemned my country to live.”

It was stated as a plain fact, devoid of reproach or sorrow. Angry but rapidly healing whip marks streaked all across his back, making Geralt’s own tingle in sympathy. The crazed thought suddenly occurred to him that Roche seemed to be seeking sanctuary with him even now – _especially_ now.

Pushing the foolish hope aside, Geralt swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “It’s not all bad you know, heightened sensitivity,” he said teasingly, in a valiant effort to lighten the atmosphere.

As soon as the words left his mouth, the witcher tried not to ask himself if he hadn’t left his flank open on purpose, waiting for the other man to either come to his aid or move in for the kill.

Roche glanced over his shoulder, evidently trying to look unimpressed but not quite successful. “I’m not in the mood, Geralt.”

The offhand way in which he said it, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to a say to a friend… Geralt should have accepted it as the coup de grâce it clearly was, but all he heard was recognition.

“I know.” Taking a chance, Geralt rose from the bed and cautiously approached the other man. “That’s not what this is about.”

He prayed Roche would not ask him what this _was_ about, then. He was afraid of that question – or rather, he was afraid of the answer. But then he realized Roche was, too. And as long as neither of them posed the question, the answer could exist between them.

As he let his eyes roam over the wounds on Roche’s back, just as the man had done to him a near-death ago, the witcher thought about his own whip scars. A dark story easily missed among the other tales his body had to tell, few of them riveting and none of them happy. Still, if not for those scars, Roche and he might not have been standing where they stood now.

_At what point does coincidence become fate?_

“We ought to get your wounds cleaned up,” Geralt said. Déjà vu suffused the air like the muted melodies at Foltest’s court.

“Why bother?” came Roche’s dull reply. “I’m supposed to be immune to infection and disease now, aren’t I? Wasn’t that the whole fucking point?”

“It was.” More quietly, Geralt continued, “Take it from an old hand, though: it’s okay to pretend to be human once in a while.”

Roche stared out of the window into nothingness. “What if I forget how?” he asked, no more than whisper.

Geralt could feel the pull between them like a Place of Power drawing him in, unseen but impossible to resist. It had taken them ages to open this portal, and then only by accident, but more and more he suspected it would not be closed again.

Then again, he wasn’t exactly killing himself trying.

“Perhaps I can help you remember… like you did for me.”

When Roche glanced back at him in incomprehension, he explained, “My path of remembrance started with you. You’re the one who made me see my own death.”

Going way further than he knew he should, Geralt nuzzled Roche’s grizzled black hair, still slightly damp from the rain. “Let me be the one to show you life.”

Roche went very still, but made no move to stop him. “I’ve told you: I’m not going to talk about it,” he warned in a low voice.

“Maybe not.” Geralt lowered his head, eliciting the tiniest shiver when his lips grazed the other man’s nape. “But I’ve a feeling your body is.”

Even without his turning around, Roche’s misgivings were a tangible thing seeping out of his pores. A pained sound escaped him when Geralt mouthed gently along the coiled tendons of his neck, but it did not stop him from tilting his head ever so little, unconsciously seeking out the familiar sensations.

“Is it my body yet?” he replied softly. “My skin clings to me like a poorly tailored dress outfit. And I could do without all these fancy new… embroideries,” he said, glancing down at his veined chest.

Geralt let his forehead rest between taut shoulder blades and was surprised to meet with no resistance. “The scarring can’t be helped, you know that,” he said simply. “Still, if nothing else, maybe Triss knows of a way to erase that eagle brand.”

There was a pause as Roche mulled the suggestion over. The muscles in his shoulders had seemed to loosen up a little more with each hushed word, each warm breath upon his skin. “No,” he said at last, his tone quiet but final. “Let all know what that whoreson did to me. Let them know I survived it.”

Geralt’s hands slowly sought their way up Roche’s flanks, tracing skin that had only begun to heal and was still unaccustomed to his touch. The witcher realized he wasn’t just resorting to physical touch as a means to comfort Roche – Roche was _letting_ him.

“That’s what magic is,” he said, unsure where the words came from yet unable to hold them back. “Opportunity, potential, tugging at the seams of this world and weaving the threads into a pattern of one’s own choosing… for better or for worse.”

Roche’s voice was as faint as a sword whistling through the air, cutting off his air supply. “Show me.”

Geralt stilled against his nape. He wasn’t sure what it was Roche wanted to be shown – he wasn’t sure Roche himself knew. But perhaps whatever was going on between them had less to do with what was being given and more with the simple act of giving it.

“Close the shutters… come with me,” he said, his voice steadier than his heart.

Roche cast him a look of apprehension but complied all the same, closing the shutters before allowing Geralt to lead him away from the window and toward the bed where he had met his maker only to spit them in the face.

“Aard.”

Crossing his fingers in front of his chest, Geralt summoned a gust of wind that pushed Roche backwards, contained yet forceful enough to urge him down on the bed.

Roche let out a curse. “What the–”

“Yrden.”

Before Roche had time to react, tendrils of bright orange wound tightly over his forearms, securing him in place. The magic would sting, but Geralt had cast the Sign far more weakly than he would in combat, and Roche had a high pain tolerance. As the witcher approached the bed, he was met with a nervous but intent gaze, carefully gauging his next move.

“The more one fights Yrden, the sooner one ends up ensnared,” Geralt stated calmly, climbing on the bed and hovering over the other man. “If you let it be, embrace the pain, at some point its hold will dissipate.”

He reached out a hand and brought it within an inch of Roche’s bare chest. Roche flinched at the near contact, outstretched fingers playing him without touching, but his eyes shone with remembrance of a time when their positions had been reversed and Geralt had been the one trembling in sweet, agonizing anticipation.

“A witcher’s senses are a lot alike,” Geralt went on, wondering who was ensnaring whom. He splayed his fingers over the other man’s vein-riddled heart, feeling its beat strong and urgent beneath his touch. “Their fire may seem all-consuming, but there’s no need to fear the burn.”

Stooping toward Roche’s ear, Geralt uttered one simple word of warning.

“Igni.”

As he formed the casting gesture, he conjured up a warm glow that spread from his fingertips and lit up the darkness around them. The soft light was reflected in Roche’s rapt stare, as if molten gold had spilled from his eyes into the room. Geralt’s fingers drifted down to the web of veins on Roche’s chest, for once leaving quiet gasps in their wake instead of angry first- and second-degree burns.

By this time the last traces of Yrden had dwindled, yet Roche made no move to break away. His head fell back as he fisted the sheets and his abdomen dipped in response to the magical heat, sounds of pain slowly blooming into sounds of pleasure.

“You’re familiar with Quen – you’ve begrudged me a shapeless, weightless shield often enough,” Geralt said shakily, withdrawing his hand and lifting Igni with some reluctance. “Which brings us to the last one.”

For a moment, Roche lay back and caught his breath, looking more than a little frayed around the edges. “Your mind control,” he managed at last, a hint of trepidation in his tone as he looked up at Geralt. “Of all your spells, that one’s always scared me the most.”

“Axii,” Geralt nodded. “It drives men and women into committing acts they would never dream of doing otherwise.”

Beneath him, Roche looked increasingly uncomfortable. “Witcher…” he said in warning, unwittingly reverting back to the old moniker.

Said witcher met his counterpart’s gaze. “The effect doesn’t last long. But I won’t show you without your permission.”

He was pushing it, he knew he was pushing it. But dammit, he’d come _this_ close to losing this man forever and now here he was, safe and sound, and somehow, even as he saw his own eyes mirrored in Roche’s, Geralt was still allowed to put his hands on him.

Then Roche gave a nod, brief but unmistakable and _trusting_ , and Geralt all but forgot how to breathe. “Sit up,” he instructed weakly.

Eyes never leaving his face, Roche slowly obeyed.

Geralt raised an unsteady hand, unnecessary for casting the Sign but he wanted to give Roche a heads up. Drawing Axii had never made him tremble before – but then again, he had never before used it for such a vile purpose. His heart was pummeling like a rabid arachas against his ribs as he locked eyes with the other man and put the spell on him.

After it was done, Geralt lowered his hand again and blinked to break the connection. As if hypnotized, Roche remained on his knees, perfectly still while he watched Geralt move closer until they were near enough to feel each other’s body heat.

Knowing deep down that he was about to cross an invisible yet unforgivable line, Geralt leaned in and let his lips touch the blackened veins of Roche’s cheek. Their unkempt stubbles grated coarsely against one another, neither man having shaved since before their arrival in Vizima.

Roche tensed but did not pull away, not even when Geralt moved inward to kiss the corner of his mouth, lightly and tentatively, as if testing a scalding drink or a potentially lethal potion. The forbidden touch burned like a false memory and, throwing caution to the wind, he closed the gap and placed a kiss on Roche’s bottom lip, eliciting a quiet sound of shock from the other man.

In a deep desire to commit that one stolen moment to memory, Geralt let his eyes fall shut and focused on the feel and taste of him, the undertone of blood spiced with dark alchemy.

As Geralt’s teeth nipped gently at his bottom lip, Roche sucked in a sharp breath. Reining himself in with difficulty, the witcher broke the contact and reopened his eyes, painfully aware he had just dug his own grave. With less than four inches between them, he could feel every one of Roche’s uneven breaths on his face, making his lips tingle.

He both loved and loathed what he was going to say next, but he couldn’t _not_ say it. “One more thing, Vernon.”

 _Don’t say it. Do NOT_ _say it._

The arachas in his chest roared in protest, fierce yet unheard, as he lowered his voice to a secret whisper. “Witchers are impervious to Axii.”

For a timeless moment, neither of them spoke nor stirred; two predators poised to strike, awaiting their opponent’s first move. Eventually, Roche was the one to pull away and regard him with eyes blazing like the Dragon’s Dream. “You bastard. You cunning bastard.”

Geralt dropped his own gaze in guilty shame. When Roche leaned forward he braced himself, convinced the man would headbutt him and break his nose. Then the witcher felt unsure lips on his, hesitant and searching like a mute learning to speak for the first time, and for the first time in his life understood what Axii must feel like.

He was as powerless against the assault as if Roche had chained him to a rack in some private interrogation cell. Halting presses of mouth set his lips ablaze like red-hot iron, tasting of murder and loss and a choice once made. Their whole past in that one kiss, and in that one kiss their whole future.

In a distant corner of his mind, Geralt became aware of their respective medallions clinking and humming together ever so faintly, and he could not help but wonder what this thing was between them – magic or danger.

The vibrations seemed to startle Roche, who had learned long ago to heed their warning. He pulled back, looking mortified by what he’d done, how _easy_ it had been to do it.

Daring not to hope, Geralt dipped his head to kiss the branded skin of Roche’s throat. “Why are you fighting this?”

Roche closed his eyes, either in silent enjoyment or because he tried to shut their predicament out entirely. “Why aren’t you?” he retorted, his vocal cords quivering subtly against Geralt’s mouth.

“Have we not committed viler crimes, you and me?”

“Even if we have,” Roche said, voice catching on some jagged, suppressed emotion, “we’ve always stopped one another before matters got out of hand.”

“What if I want this matter to get out of hand?” Geralt pulled away, causing the other man to reopen his eyes. “What if it already has?”

“You can’t mean that,” Roche said weakly.

Even now, he was offering Geralt a way out, and it was high time to take him up on that offer. Just back out while he still could. Just be glad both of them were alive and well. Just stop tempting fate.

Either making up his mind or losing it for good, Geralt slowly placed a kiss to Roche’s temple, watching those amber eyes slip half closed once more. The witcher’s heart went back to pounding madly against his ribs as he whispered soundlessly against veined skin.

_I’m in love with you._

Trailing downward to Roche’s rugged jawline, he repeated the silent confession, even if speaking felt like bleeding to death in Rivia all over again.

_I’m in love with you._

Muscles seemed to tense, breathing seemed to halt, and Geralt wasn’t sure which was whose anymore. The same tension thrummed in Roche’s shoulders as in the breath before battle, the same covert twitch in his fingers as when his sword called to him. Geralt could sense the conflict in the other man’s body heat, hear the qualms in a hitching of breath. The change was subtle, as if Roche was making a strong effort to suppress it, but it was there.

_If you pretend you didn’t hear it, I’ll pretend I didn’t say it._

“It’s wrong,” Roche managed after a long pause, voice barely above a whisper. For all they knew, he could’ve been picking up the conversation right where they had left off; all Geralt had to do was play along. “It’s immoral, it’s–”

“A crime against nature?” came the dry suggestion. “Contrary to conscience and virtue?”

Roche looked at him with knowing, burning intensity. “You don’t believe that.”

Geralt’s heart skipped an eager beat. “Do y–?”

His reply was cut short when Roche lightly cupped his face and kissed the words right off his lips.

That one moment could not be captured in grand terms any more than it could in humble ones, nor was there any need to. Its precise message would not be conceived but by two men, neither of whom could care less about words right then.

When Roche faltered again in spite of – maybe _because of_ – himself, Geralt gently, carefully dared to push back, keeping the other man in the lead while falling into his pace. It was a novel dance between them, fierce and delicate all at once, and both witchers instinctively played off one another, each compensating for the other’s weaknesses. An insecure hand found its way to Geralt’s chest, as if to rein him in, then snaked up to his neck and pulled him closer.

As their breathing grew ragged, Roche’s free hand sneaked upon Geralt’s wrist and slowly guided their joint fingers between his legs, making Geralt touch him in a gesture of eager yet hesitant intimacy.

Geralt could feel the contours of a growing erection through the leather fabric, and through sheer power of will refrained from pushing the man flat on his back and having his way with him right then and there. He reminded himself that Roche had been through a lot – they _both_ had – and the last thing he wanted was to pressure him into anything.

“You don’t have to,” he said instead, if rather belatedly and a little out of breath.

Roche’s lips found his ear, a gesture in equal parts foreign and familiar and driving him just as crazy now as it had back in the Blue Mountains. “I want to.”

And oh, the way Roche’s low voice wrapped around him, the man really wasn’t playing fair.

“You sure?” Geralt tried very hard not to sound _too_ hopeful.

There was a beat of silence, then came Roche’s voice again, sensual as fine silk and dead sincere. “I’m so hard for you right now.”

His voice caught as he said it, and Geralt could tell it wasn’t so much an attempt to turn him on as it was the honest, gods-given truth. A torturer’s confession made under the sweetest duress; a whispered admission that made both victim and interrogator crack under gradual, long-overdue pressure.

He gave a soft moan as Roche claimed his mouth again. Neither of them was supposed to be this aroused by the hard muscles and sharp angles of a male body, by the rough fingers trailing over scarred flesh, the coarse stubble against his own, the low growls in response to none-too-gentle touches.

Giving in at long last, Geralt let his hands migrate lower, caressing down flanks that were bonier than they should be before halting at the waistband of Roche’s trousers. At once, the commander stilled against him, buzzing with nervous excitement.

He sensed that the prospect of another man’s touch, skin on skin, was skirting the line for Roche. Unable to watch, he buried his face in the crook of Geralt’s neck yet slowly lifted his hips off the bed, allowing Geralt to drag his trousers down his thighs inch by inch and fully expose his arousal.

Feeling overwhelmed by the other man’s conflicted submission, Geralt ran his hands up Roche’s bare thighs and was rewarded with a hot, shaky breath against his skin that gave him goosebumps all over.

While they had touched and had been touched like this once before, much had been lost in the urgency of the moment. It was such a deliberate, vulnerable thing to do now, to run a digit up velvety skin and tease the tip with his thumb.

Roche’s breathing soon blossomed into quiet moans, and Geralt knew he could bring him to completion just like that. Awed, he planned on doing exactly that, until he felt the urgent touch of Roche’s hand on his wrist. He looked up to find a pair of witcher eyes watching him with an intensity seldom seen outside of battle trance.

Being pushed down on his back was like a drowned dead dragging him under and robbing him of his breath. Having unsure but eager fingers rake down his flanks, encouraging him to raise his hips and slowly stripping off his trousers in turn, was like the claws of a bruxa slicing through his belly after blood loss had already left him numb and dizzy. Flipping them both over until all that remained was the heat of two naked bodies was like no monster attack he’d ever experienced.

A needy sound escaped their throats as their erections pressed flush together, each man overwhelmed by the simple, physical reality of the other’s desire. It were their bodies which found a rhythm, moving in wonted unison. Instinct took over just as it did in combat, feeding off subtle muscle changes, a perverted reversal of fighting back to back.

Roche seemed uncertain what to do with his hands, so Geralt pinned them down above his head, fostering his sense of freedom by limiting his options. Palms held down wrists, feet slid down calves, hips bucked up into each other with growing abandon. It was an awkward mess of limbs and one of the most intimate, most sexual things the witcher had ever done with another person.

The medallions between their chests hummed in either silent approval or condemnation and went entirely unheeded either way as both men bared a hidden side to one another, to themselves, whispering things in between not-quite-accidental brushing of lips that neither of them would admit to in the light of day. Pearls of sweat leaked from their pores, spilling hot and incriminating upon the mattress or lapped up by an avid tongue.

Geralt leaned down and placed an open-mouthed kiss to the commander’s bobbing throat, blood pounding in his ears. “Come to Nilfgaard with me.”

Roche let out a breathless laugh. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” Roche sighed. “ _Fuck,_ yes.”

Eventually their hushed communication transcended language, spoke of things too beautiful for such an ugly world, too open-hearted for their cynical selves, and too carnal for a fairytale. In an unexpected gesture, Roche put his lips to the side of Geralt’s neck, mouthing along his tattoo while imbuing the inked skin with sinful prayers.

It shouldn’t have felt so natural to rub himself against this soldier of Temeria, this captain of the special forces, this _witcher_. Shouldn’t have been possible for two men who’d been trained as killing machines for most of their lives to make one another feel this good. Shouldn’t have been so easy to completely and voluntarily give up control; to put themselves in the other man’s hands; to fully allow themselves to feel, to give _,_ to _want_.

The choked utterance of “witcher” into the warm stretch of Geralt’s neck was a warning, a plea, and an absolution all at once. The witcher hadn’t forgotten Roche’s partiality for speech during sex, especially on the subject of…

“Do you feel your heart pumping away? Feel that pulse, four times slower than a human’s, speeding up, choosing life?” His voice was no more than a chanted growl in Roche’s ear. “That’s _my_ blood coursing through your veins as of now. As my skin bears your mark… your blood bears mine.”

A shudder went up Roche’s spine and left his mouth as a pained whimper, and the next moment his hips jerked and their stomachs were coated by tendrils of warm, pulsating wetness. Geralt slowed down his thrusts to ease Roche’s urgent pace, feeling the other man’s orgasm ripple through his own body and filing Roche’s curses away in his memory as the one kind of poetry he could appreciate.

Slowly, Roche’s rocking motions becalmed as he rode out the tides of pleasure. Once the worst of the tremors had subsided, he sank back against the sheets. Unsteady fingers found their way between Geralt’s legs, grasping his cock with the same sleight as they would a sword. Roche sat up and nipped at his throat, still short of breath. “Tell me what you need.”

And Geralt told him – told him where to touch him, told him how to do it, told him _yes_ and _please_ until his breath stuttered in his lungs and Roche flashed him a crooked, knowing grin. There was a raw edge to his voice when he spoke up.

“Let it go, Geralt.”

The witcher gave a short, broken laugh at the familiar choice of phrase, and then he _was_ letting go, pushing into Roche’s coaxing hand, shuddering with the power of his release. He nuzzled the other man’s neck and inhaled his scent, revelled in his body heat, heard his inhumanly slow pulse gradually return to its resting state.

Close.

Warm.

 _Alive_.

And if Roche noticed that Geralt’s frame was wrecked by something other than pleasure, or realized that the hot, salty moisture seeping into his neck was more than just sweat, he was courteous enough to hold his silence and just let it be.

Geralt’s fingertips whispered down flushed skin, catalogued scars that hadn’t been there the last time; mirroring an apology once given, a forgiveness long there. “I’m sorry I wasn’t prepared to let you make that sacrifice,” he whispered at last.

An exhale of breath against his hair, more felt than heard, which may have been a laugh or may have been a sigh. “There are a great many things I wasn’t prepared for of late,” came the soft reply. “Not all of which I can say I feel sorry about.”

The other man shifted beneath him, causing Geralt to blink the emotion out of his eyes and will his head up. He was grateful when it turned out Roche was simply stretching out his limbs, looking utterly at ease in his own skin for the first time since waking up a witcher – possibly longer than that.

For one second, keen eyes flicked up to his face, only to discreetly glance away in the next moment. “You all right?” Roche asked, as if comfort and sympathy ought have been his to give right then.

There were no arms around him, no fingers caressing through his hair, for which Geralt was infinitely glad. He couldn’t have borne pity right then. But in the absence of touch, Roche allowed him to feel, allowed him to be no more than he was.

It was a rare thing, a gift of omission. Rarer still considering who had chosen to give it.

No, Geralt decided, he _wasn’t_ all right. But right then, he didn’t have to be.

“Yeah, I…” He took a moment to get himself back together and released a slow breath. “Yeah,” he repeated, surprised that it didn’t even really feel like a lie. “You?”

A long pause, then, “I will be.”

Feeling a more agreeable type of exhaustion creep up on him, Geralt settled back against Roche’s sweat-slick body. His attention roamed to the stubbled jaw, the undeniably male smell that wasn’t his, the hard angles of a man’s body against his own – similar to a woman’s in all the wrong ways and different in all the right ones.

It should have felt far too intimate a position to be in. Yet he’d seen the nooses, the murderous rage, the threat of regicide reflected in Roche’s eyes. He’d sensed surrender and defeat in his sagged, abused shoulders. He’d seen those same eyes look his animal self in the face without blanching; seen _changed_ eyes look at him without disgust, without hatred, without judgment.

At the end of the day, perhaps sharing a bed was not the sole act of intimacy they’d shared.

“On the bright side, we can’t sink much lower than this, can we?” Roche said, interrupting his thoughts.

Geralt blinked lazily. “To be fair, you couldn’t sink much lower since ‘Emhyr var Emreis, spice merchant.’”

“Fuck you.”

Coming from Roche, those two words could mean pretty much anything, ranging from _I’m one second away from stabbing a quill in your throat_ to _I’m glad you’re here with me_. Though combined with the tinge of humor in his tone, Geralt was reasonably sure it was the latter. So when Roche kicked him off and got up, Geralt let himself be kicked and willingly scooted over.

At the foot of the bed stood a wooden bucket of water that had been left behind after Roche’s… Trial, and one witcher lay back and watched as the other retrieved a bloodied rag from the water – frowning at the blood but swallowing back any questions – and proceeded to clean himself up in an unhurried, almost relaxed fashion.

The sight of Roche’s changed body on full display – the blackened veins and healing injuries, already too reminiscent of a witcher’s hardships – still pained Geralt no end. Yet when Roche turned his head with calm amber eyes that couldn’t be his, couldn’t be anyone’s _but_ his, all the witcher saw was the same confidence and heart and life that had impressed themselves on a certain king once.

Seeming almost embarrassed under his blatant stare, Roche looked away in favor of squatting down and wringing the rag out in the bucket. For a second, however, Geralt could’ve sworn he saw the ghost of a smile playing about his lips.

“Shit, I need a proper bath,” Roche announced with a shake of his head, rising to his full height and tossing the wet cloth to Geralt, who caught it with a lazy flick of his wrist. He was joined once more by Roche, who sat down on the edge of the bed before taking a long look at his own body. “On second thought, it can wait until after my house call on Ducat.”

_Why am I not surprised?_

Geralt did not even try to talk him out of it. After all, he’d helped make this bed, now he was going to have to lie in it.

But hey, at least the company could’ve been worse.

“What makes you so sure he hasn’t abandoned ship by now?” he asked instead, cold water promptly making him decide upon a cursory wash. Contrary to popular belief, he hadn’t been desensitized to the point of analgesia, thanks very much.

Even though Roche didn’t look his way, Geralt couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was hyperaware of his every move. “Oh, this old rat knows how to swim, you may rest assured of that.”

“It’s exactly this fucking patriotism that almost got you killed,” Geralt pointed out helpfully, needlessly.

“It’s exactly this fucking patriotism that makes my life worth a damn to begin with.”

Geralt traced a mental thumb along those words, sought for a way to dull their edge. Slowly, cautiously, he sat up and came up behind Roche. Not quite suicidal enough to lay his chin on the other man’s shoulder, he reached out a dauntless hand to run the wet cloth over Roche’s hip bone.

“Want me to take care of that?” he asked in a seductively low voice.

Roche side-eyed him. “Based on past experience, I suspect such an act would defeat its purpose.”

“Depends on what purpose you had in mind,” Geralt hinted with a sly grin.

Roche huffed an exasperated laugh, but the fingers he locked around Geralt’s wrist to halt his teasing had the iron grip of a soldier’s. “Until the day I die, remember?” he recited softly.

Geralt held still and nodded, even though a pleasant shiver ran through him at the simple touch. He’d missed this – the ribbing, the candor, the lack of tact or pretense between them; even if that too would require time to fully heal. “One way or another,” he recalled amenably before taking his arm back.

Just like that, a tension seemed to unravel in Roche’s shoulders, and it was all the gratitude Geralt knew he had no way of expressing in words. The witcher resisted the urge to press a kiss to Roche’s nape. He knew his place, knew the boundaries, and figured he could live with them just fine.

Roche got up again to get dressed – which didn’t take long since all he had left was a pair of trousers – before moving over to the window to reopen the shutters and let in some fresh air.

Meanwhile, Geralt contented himself with lying down and stretching his back until his joints gave a satisfying pop. “Should you succeed in sniffing him out, tell Thaler I said hi. Let him know I’m in town.”

“There was a time I wouldn’t have had to,” Roche said seriously. He breathed in deeply through his nose as he lingered near the window, seemingly reacquainting himself with the scent of his city. “For our country’s sake, let us hope that is still the case.”

Geralt wasn’t sure whether the collective pronoun was meant to refer to Thaler or to himself. He was surprisingly okay with the latter.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked, suppressing a yawn.

With a final glance at the Trade Quarter, Roche stepped away from the window. “For now, no. I need a decent sitrep first.”

Off duty, then, at long last. Geralt heaved a sigh of relief. Still, there was one obligation he had no intention of bailing out of.

“Vernon?” he called just as Roche laid a hand on the door latch. “Go see Ves before you leave. You owe her that much, and more.”

“I will,” Roche said, the lines in his face softening as he turned back around. “Sleep now, you look like you need it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Roche’s grin was like White Honey purging any lingering poison from his system. After he’d unfastened the latch and slipped through the door to face the shitstorm that always seemed to await them beyond, Geralt dragged himself off the bed. He pulled on his trousers to make himself decent again, then got comfortable atop the rumpled sheets once more. It took a while before he caught himself glancing longingly at the door, and he shook his head when he did.

He knew Roche couldn’t care less about sex, the man had told him as much the last time he’d lain half-naked beneath him, but it wouldn’t be the first occasion he seemed willing to make an exception for Geralt, nor was it likely to be the last.

Maybe the reverse was also true, because once – in a previous life – Geralt had wished for nothing but perfumed skin and luscious curves, melodious sighs and high-pitched cries on delicately painted lips, raven locks falling across an alabaster throat. Yet it turned out not even wishes were immortal, and with strange aeons even destiny may die. Fairytales may be black and white, but reality was grey through and through… silver as a lily, blue as a mountain.

Perhaps come winter, the two of them would end up braving the cold at Kaer Morhen together. Lambert would be having a field day – and oh, Lambert and Vernon Roche, there were two forces bound to clash – Eskel would grouch about Lambert having a field day, and Vesemir…

Shit, Vesemir was going to kill him.

But for the time being, Geralt knew better than to push his luck and gamble on the ever-fickle dice of destiny. First, they had a border to cross, a war to fight, ghosts to confront and put to rest.

Above all, they had a Path to walk.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geralt’s love confession borrows from David Lynch’s masterpiece _Mulholland Drive_.
> 
> I got the idea for the line “their whole past in that one kiss, and in that one kiss their whole future” while watching Stephen Daldry’s _The Hours_ : “A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.”
> 
> I owe “an apology once given, a forgiveness long there” entirely to user esuterutomoru, whose comment on _A Choice Made_ refused to get out of my head.
> 
> The phrase “with strange aeons, even destiny may die” is a less-than-subtle reference to H. P. Lovecraft’s _The Nameless City_ as well as the first _Witcher_ game: “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.”
> 
> The ‘cover image’ is a screenshot from TW2 edited by me. Enjoy, but please do not share/reblog elsewhere (on account of spoilers).


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